
Glass TS \ 1 ?3 
Book_Jl 






Copyright N°__L22j3_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The 

Marching Years 



By 

Norman Bridge 

M.D., A.M., LL.D. 



NEW YORK 

DUFFIELD & COMPANY 

1920 



S&* 



«%p 



Copyright, 1920, by 
Norman Bridge 



OCT 21 1920 
©CU597968 



PRINTED BX 

FAULKNER-RYAN CO. 

CHICAGO 



To 
M. M. B. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER __ PAGE 

Introduction ---------- l 

I The Tribe 3 

II Vermont 14 

III Illinois -- 39 

IV Farm Training 47 

V Sophistication 53 

VI Expansion 62 

VII Education --- 76 

VIII Indispensable Study -- 90 

IX Teaching Medicine 97 

X Hospitals 108 

XI Medical Press -- 117 

XII Public Office - - - 123 

XIII Charity 136 

XIV Chicago 140 

XV California 153 

XVI Europe 164 

XVII Authorship 168 

XVIII Courts and Doctors 187 

XIX Secular Business 206 

XX Los Angeles 221 

XXI Clubs and Societies 227 

XXII War Time Activities 234 

XXIII The Emotional Side 238 

XXIV Music 245 

XXV Friendships 253 

Appendix I Newspaper War 261 

Appendix II Boston Medical and Surgical Journal - 266 

Appendix III Recollections of Chh^dhood ----- 267 

Appendix IV A Letter to a Friend 279 

Appendix V The Psychology of the Thing ... - 288 

Appendix VI List of Publications 291 



The Marching Years 



INTRODUCTION. 

IT is the fate of many men of advancing years to be given 
to reminiscence, and ofttimes to think of their own family 

history. They feel a tenderness for their old friends, and 
find it easy to recall things of long ago, while memory begins 
to show treachery for names and events of more recent time. 
As their vigor diminishes, their families and friends grow 
solicitous for them, tell them to watch their steps, and be 
sure to have within reach always an overcoat or a cane — or 
both. As the solicitude deepens and business cares decrease, 
some of them are urged to write memoirs of their lives — of 
such consequence do they seem to those who are nearest to 
them. 

This is not an unlaudable purpose, and men like to talk 
and sometimes write about their own lives, especially about 
their boyhood and youth. To do so creates and indulges an 
egoistic warmth that is common to us all, and that, under 
restraint, may escape being an infliction to neighbors and 
friends. 

I have a suspicion that the urging of such exploits, by 
those who love us, often has back of it unwittingly a vision 
— perhaps hazy and indefinite — of an autobiographical hiding 
of various stumblings and faults, in a glamour of magni- 
fied virtues, successes and wisdom. Anyway, we like to see 
these last in a concave mirror, for this is a universal 
weakness. We love stories, and if they are often enough 
retold they are apt to grow in the qualities and shadings 
that we like. So gentle fiction may even come to be a very 
seeming of truth. 

[1] 



2 THE MARCHING YEARS 

It is probably true that most men who, by the urge of 
friends or their own impulses, come to write the story of 
their lives, endeavor to give a truthful account; but no man, 
however candid, could tell the whole story if he tried to; 
or even a large fraction of it without some coloration or 
varnish in spots — so unavoidable is bias, and so certain is 
some measure of egoism. 

The average autobiography is written to satisfy the desire 
of the subject, or for his family and friends — or for his critics, 
or to settle with enemies if he has such. Few such writings 
are of much consequence to the general public — outside of 
those who have known the author or have been interested 
in the purposes of his life or his opinions. In apology for 
inflicting such a work on a public larger than his immediate 
group of relatives and friends, the present writer ventures 
to hope that, apart from his own personality which must 
run through it like a red line, he has succeeded in infusing 
the record with some not unprofitable light of his time and 
thought. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE TRIBE. 

IN 1632 John Bridge came to this country from England 
and settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He soon 
became a citizen of importance, and was made a Deacon 
in the Church, which was itself the most vital institution 
in the new settlement. He was a Deacon for twenty-three 
years. To be a Deacon was then the highest certificate of 
character, as well as of responsibility. In this settlement at 
that early day the only land owners were the church mem- 
bers; and the officers of the Church, chiefly the Pastor and 
Deacons, were sometimes required to act in the capacity of 
Magistrate in matters concerning landed ''property. He 
owned and lived on the land on which was afterwards built 
the Craigie House, Washington's Headquarters, later the 
home of the poet Longfellow. 

In a small park in front of one of the buildings of Harvard 
University stands a bronze statue of John Bridge in the 
guise of a Puritan, which was erected to his memory in 1882. 
It bears a legend recording his usefulness and uprightness and 
the fact that he was a Deacon. It is said that he was in- 
directly responsible for the present location in Cambridge of 
Harvard University. 

The present writer is of the eighth generation in direct 
descent from Deacon John. In the fifth generation was one 
Ebenezer Bridge, a Colonel in General Washington's army. 
His home before the Revolution was Fitchburg, Massa- 
chusetts. Before the war he was forehanded; after the war 
was over he found himself a poor man, and then moved 
with his large family to Vermont. Several of his sons became 
farmers; but some of the next generation were merchants 
and manufacturers. 

[3] 



4 THE MARCHING YEARS 

My father, James Madison Bridge, only child of James 
B., and grandson of the Colonel, was a farmer in a small 
way in West Windsor, Vermont, on a little tract of about 
eighty, possibly one hundred acres, largely of unarable hills, 
mostly belonging to his father. The farm, before he and 
his father bought it, had been the poor-farm of the town, 
and some years after we left for the West it once again 
became the property of the town, and housed its few paupers. 
In 1906 I visited the old home and was allowed by the cus- 
todian to remove and bring away for trophies some of the 
ancient forged hinges and hooks from one of the buildings. 
The town of West Windsor was, at the time of my birth, a 
part of the town of Windsor, from which it was excised by the 
Legislature in 1848. My father's parents lived with us, in 
a separate part of the house, until we moved to Illinois at 
the end of 1856. In two years they followed us and lived 
in our family until their death, a few years later. This 
grandfather was, during all my memory of him, a valetudi- 
narian — weakly and unvigorous, but never very sick. My 
grandmother, Susan Ralph Bridge, came of a large family 
of stalwart and hard working people. 

My mother was Nancy Ann (Bagley) Bridge, daughter of 
Thomas and Nancy Marsh Bagley. This branch of the 
Bagley family is descended from one Orlando Bagley of 
Massachusetts. He was married in 1653 to Sarah Colby, 
who died in Boston ten years later, after bearing five children. 
The family probably was of English stock, although there is 
some evidence of its Irish origin. There was a tradition in 
the family that the mother of my Grandfather Bagley had 
Indian blood in her veins; it was said that she showed it in 
her face — and some members of the family were rather proud 
to believe it. But later research and the discovery of re- 
corded evidence of authenticity, show that, with scarcely a 
doubt, the tradition was a myth, founded on nothing better 
than the brunette complexion and strong features of the 



THE MARCHING YEARS 5 

woman, and the fact that one of her progenitors had been 
shot to death by Indians in front of his own door. 

My Great-grandfather Bagley, Thomas, Sr., was a soldier 
of the Revolution, and during the war lost whatsoever for- 
tune he had. He had several sons and one daughter. 

My mother was the eldest of eight children. Her youth 
was passed in a time of great privation, and no family ever 
grew up with a keener appreciation of the value of money. 
Their educational advantages were most meagre, and my 
mother was the greatest sufferer of the family in this par- 
ticular. One or two terms in a country school gave all the 
formal education she ever had. She helped her mother raise 
her younger children. The youngest, twenty years her 
junior, was John Parker B. who was killed in the battle of 
Shiloh, April 6, 1862. 

Of my mother's three children, two were sons, eighteen 
months apart, and one a daughter, Susan, born seven years 
later. The elder son, Edward, when eighteen years old, 
went to the war with his young uncle in 1861, and died of 
sickness early in 1864, after many battles, with never a 
scratch except in the first one, Shiloh, where he had a slight 
wound that invalided him home for a few weeks. Neither 
his mother, nor any of us, ever saw him again in life. When 
we heard that he was sick, my father started to go to him. 
After many obstacles he reached the camp of his regiment, 
the 55th 111. Vols., at Larkinsville, Alabama, to find that the 
boy had been dead over a week. His comrades exhumed the 
body and encased it in a proper casket. Then they, in rank 
violation of military orders, smuggled my father with the 
casket into an empty freight car, bound north. There the 
living and the dead rode, the sole occupants of the car, for 
some two hundred miles, in the unmitigated cold of January, 
to Nashville. Thence home the way was easy — and the boy 
was buried among his own. His comrades afterward told us 
that, as the end approached and he knew he was about to 
die, he asked passionately — maybe on the borderland of 



6 THE MARCHING YEARS 

delirium — if his body would be left there to be kicked about 
by the "Rebs." He was calmed by their assurances that he 
should be buried at home. It was a promise they made in 
love and pity, without any serious expectation that it could 
ever be fulfilled — and*now it was made good. 

My several grandparents had very dissimilar traits. The 
paternal grandfather was a gentle soul, rather lacking in 
force, quite a reader of the few books we had, a good letter- 
writer, and a capital story-teller for boys. His education 
was the best of the four, and was acquired in the country 
district school, which was the sole resource of his generation. 
Years later there was an "Academy" in South Woodstock, a 
near-by town, that gave further instruction and even embel- 
lishments to a few young people, mostly women. For a 
girl or boy to have attended this school was quite a dis- 
tinction, and led to envy and jealousy in the neighborhood. 
One or two of my distant cousins had been pupils there, but 
none of our immediate family. Across the Green Mountains 
to the west of us was Middlebury College. Not only did 
none of our community ever attend it, but at my twelfth 
year I had never heard of its existence, so little did these 
people, amid their struggles for a living, think or know about 
higher education. 

Grandfather Bridge was full of historical anecdotes 
and reminiscences, especially of the Revolutionary War, in 
which his father, Colonel Ebenezer, had been a soldier. He 
was always a half invalid, and almost daily took medicine of 
some sort, mostly herb teas — which were probably harmless. 
He would lie on a lounge after supper and let us boys lie 
beside him while he told us stories of wars and adventures 
with wild animals — but never of his own exploits. His stock 
of such stories was limited, but that made no difference to us; 
we enjoyed the fortieth telling of a story almost as much as 
the first. His phraseology was always the same, and we 
learned it so well by iteration that we could have repeated 
the stories, but we preferred to have him tell them, and never 



THE MARCHING YEARS 7 

tired of hearing them. We knew when the climax was coming, 
and were ready to laugh or exclaim at it, but always restrained 
ourselves until it came. 

His outlook was narrowed by his poor health, and when my 
father proposed to move from the infertile hills to the prairies 
of the Middle West and better prospects, it was a shock to 
him; it seemed as terrible as going to China, and he deeply 
lamented it. 

My paternal grandmother was a very good, but not a 
very forceful woman. Her life had been overshadowed by 
her husband and his invalidism. She was always kind to her 
grandchildren, but in dealing with them she was evidently 
obsessed with her duty not to interfere with the family 
government of her daughter-in-law, and this she never did. 
There are thousands of good and dutiful women who fit into 
their narrow grooves so perfectly that they go through life 
noiselessly, avoiding all controversies, even in conversation, 
and so the world rarely discovers their true worth. Such a 
woman was this grandmother. One of the surprising things 
about them is that when some accident of life shoves them 
out of their groove and upon their own resources, they sur- 
prise both their neighbors and themselves by their efficiency. 

My maternal grandfather was a character. He was erect, 
had dark stiff hair, small dark eyes and positive features. 
He spoke deliberately, with few, and no useless, words, unless 
he was joking his friends or his grandchildren. He was a 
stranger to gossip, especially disparaging gossip about his 
neighbors. He rarely hurried about anything, and usually 
accomplished his purposes. He was a most peaceful man, 
yet had more kinds of real courage than most men who are 
reputed courageous. He was a great reader of newspapers, 
and read the best of them, but I do not remember ever to have 
seen him read a book. He wrote few letters, and they were 
brief, but crowded with his message. He had a warm affec- 
tion for us all, and was shy about showing it — rarely did show 
it save in some act of kindness wholly devoid of ostentation ; 



8 THE MARCHING YEARS 

and if anyone thanked him profusely he was surprised and 
embarrassed. 

He enjoyed joking certain people, especially some of his 
grandsons. He knew that we boys were rather proud of our 
great-grandfather, Colonel Bridge, for his soldierly exploits; 
and that we resented any reflection upon his fame. So, in 
order to see me sputter, he would tell in my presence how the 
Colonel had once in battle sent for the surgeon, reporting 
himself as severely wounded, with blood flowing down into his 
boots ; and that the surgeon found the blood to be nothing but 
perspiration, due to fright. The story was pure fiction, but 
it had its effect, which he enjoyed. 

My Grandmother Bagley was a smallish woman with 
light hair and eyes. She was one of the finest characters I 
ever knew. She had all the best sentiments and ideals. 
Unusually fond of children, and always glad to have them 
about her (even if they were not her own grandchildren, of 
whom she had a swarm), she understood girls and drew them 
to her for sympathy and strength. And for many of the 
boys she had the rarest powers of attraction and influence. 
She could make a small boy ashamed of any mean conduct or 
sentiment, and give him a sense of moral principle as a 
guide, keeping all the time her complete hold on him. It 
was a rare power, and she seemed wholly unconscious of 
having it. I was allowed in my tenth year to live a full 
twelvemonth with these grandparents. It was an advantage 
for me; my grandmother seemed to enjoy it; and my parents 
evidently were glad to reduce, by at least half, the boy mischief 
in their house. It was a great year for me, for I had the 
distinction of being the only child in the house, and all the 
attention which that meant. I worked little and played 
much. My grandmother had almost my entire confidence, 
but I had for a long time one secret from her. After the 
stock of butternuts was gone I often appeared with my 
pockets full of them. They were from the store of the 
squirrels — my discovery among a random pile of old shingles 



THE MARCHING YEARS 9 

in the attic of the woodshed. I went to school in the summer 
as well as winter, and was the bearer of love letters between 
my Uncle Parker and the teacher, Miss Furber, whom he 
afterwards married. 

I was always a timid boy, and was easily startled by 
sudden sounds and sights — and was afraid of the dark. On 
going to live at Grandfather Bagley's it was necessary for me 
to sleep in a room alone. Always previously having slept 
with my older brother, this change taxed my courage. It 
would not do to tell Grandma of my fear, for that would be 
babyish. I went to bed alone and comforted myself by 
promptly covering my head with the bedclothes — would go 
to sleep in this way, but always wakened with my head 
uncovered. It was long years before that fear wholly wore 
away. One of the greatest tests of courage of that time was 
to walk a quarter of a mile alone through a wood after 
dark from my uncle's to my grandfather's house. Few 
tough situations that I have had to face since that time 
have been severer tests of true courage than that act. The 
memory of it, and of a few others similar to it, have given me 
a feeling of sympathy for the soldier going into battle, who 
would like to run away except for the awful grip of personal 
pride and fear of ignominy. 

My mother was a woman of great character, utterly 
dependable, and of untiring industry. She was for her 
neighborhood in times of trouble and sickness the one woman 
everybody seemed to turn to and lean upon. Her children 
instinctively turned to her as the strongest personality in their 
world. She always believed in her children, although her 
sons (not her daughter) were amazingly roguish, and often 
needed restraint, which they did not fail to get. Her faith 
in us probably kept us from being as bad as we might have 
been. 

There was always as much comradeship between her and 
her children as the austere amenities of that time and country 
allowed, for the mothers of that day and place had rarely 



10 THE MARCHING YEARS 

any caresses or words of endearment for children nearing the 
school-going age, or for anybody else except infants. They 
kissed their babies, but seldom their children. The fathers 
virtually never had any words of endearment for anybody 
or thing. Such words meant softness and effeminacy in 
boys and men. The parents were Father and Mother. The 
words Pa and Papa sounded silly to me the first time I 
heard them, and for a long time afterward. 

It is a rather curious fact that, although we two boys 
got into various sorts of scrapes together, and out of our 
selfishness and jealousy often quarreled with each other before 
our thirteenth year, after that time this tendency wholly 
disappeared, and we became the most constant and unself- 
ish friends and comrades. And I cannot recall that either 
of us ever got into a serious fight with another boy. This 
may seem to indicate a lack of self-assertiveness ; certainly 
there was no such lack in the case of my brother. 

My father was more distant with his children, with- 
out either knowing that he was, or wishing to be. He 
was truthful but not frank with us, although he doubtless 
tried to be, and would have been glad to be. It was hard 
for us to go to him with our troubles, and easy to go to our 
mother, and we did not then know why. He was honest, 
upright and just, but he was the more moderate and less 
active of the two. This I am sure at times rather irritated 
my mother. She could scold a fellow soundly and easily — 
he never could. He had much more education than she had, 
but was less actively intellectual. He lacked the aptitude or 
power to play; to my knowledge he was never known to 
hunt, fish or otherwise play with us or anyone else — except 
an occasional game of checkers that he would have with us 
boys or some friend. Our mother never played. She never 
sat down at home without some work in her hands — knitting, 
sewing or what-not — unless she was reading; and she did a 
great deal of reading aloud, and read very well. She read 
short stories and some books to us — and this was the most 



THE MARCHING YEARS 11 

vital part of our early education. One notable book that she 
read to us was "Uncle Tom's Cabin." 

My early memories of my mother are vivid and precious. 
Over the long years I can still see her at her many tasks. 
Now she is mending or darning the family apparel — and we 
boys are almost as proud of a freshly patched garment as of 
a new one. Our garments for every-day wear are nearly 
always patched. Next, she is spinning woolen yarn from 
rolls fresh from the carding mill. It was a previous genera- 
tion of Vermont housewives who made shorter rolls by the 
manipulation of two hand-cards. Now the carding mill in 
the near-by village made rolls twice as long and more even 
and beautiful — little fluffy rods of snowy wool, so light that 
a puff of wind would blow them away. 

She stood up to the tall spinning wheel, and moved 
rapidly forward and back as each roll lengthened and nar- 
rowed into a long stretch of yarn as she drove the great wheel 
forward. To spin a roll and wind it on the base of the 
spindle required her to stop and start the wheel four times — 
twice forward and twice back, and each roll had to be caught 
by a deft twist of the fingers to the vanishing end of the 
previous one. She worked with amazing energy, and seemed 
never to be tired. We saw her dye the yarn, and then from 
it knit socks and mittens, and weave cloth for our homespun 
clothes, which she later made for us. There was a loom in 
the attic that served for this purpose, as well as, with some 
changes, to weave rag-carpets — and she was expert at both. 

I enjoyed seeing my mother at work, and sometimes 
helped her. But washing dishes was always distasteful; and 
churning, like turning the grindstone, was too monotonous 
and tiring — mentally as well as physically tiring. Children 
dislike monotony in most things, even play; and I was ex- 
treme in this particular. To see her make cheese was always 
fun; and we were glad to help her, especially in the manipula- 
tion of the cheese press. We chopped the curd in a chopping 
bowl for her, and helped her put it into the press, surrounded 



12 THE MARCHING YEARS 

by a cloth that had been washed to immaculateness. Every 
step in her work, especially when it touched any food stuff, 
was marked by such ardor of cleanliness as to be a continuing 
lesson in aseptic good housekeeping. In that same bowl 
with the chopping-knife I used to chop apples, as well as 
other fruits and vegetables; and in the family mortar pounded 
to powder such things as cloves, cinnamon, allspice and black 
pepper — which were used to give an appetizing piquancy to 
our food. 

She made soap and dipped candles with equal facility 
and skill — the making of candles with tin molds she never 
liked as well — and we early dispensed with the old-fashioned 
candles that required the constant use of snuffers, with poor 
results at best, for lamps and the stearine candles of commerce. 

There were two of mother's tasks that we specially en- 
joyed with her, the sugaring-off of the maple syrup in the 
early spring and the semi-weekly cooking of doughnuts. 
The boys had a distinct part in both processes — chiefly in 
causing the products to disappear. 

These Yankee people used sweet milk moderately for 
cooking and to eat in the famous "bread and milk." They 
ought to have eaten, but rarely did, save in some of their 
cookery, the sour milk or clabber. It took the people of 
our Southern States to learn the food value and succulent 
tang of clabber. Perhaps their lack of natural ice led them 
to it — or was it the habits of their negro servants? But in 
early New England the odor of clabber at the dinner table 
was offensive. It was only proper for the swill-pail, where 
all the other refuse from the table and pantry went for the 
pigs — and the mixture took and held chiefly the odor of sour 
milk. The pigs found it a delightful aroma (as the humans 
ought to have found it) * and, when they sniffed it, they rushed 
with squealing joy to their feeding trough and sucked up the 
luscious mixture, actually fighting for the best places for 

*If one doubts this let him take a saucer full of cold clabber, with its own cream un- 
touched, sprinkle over it some sugar with a dash of nutmeg or powdered cinnamon, and 
see what a refreshing dessert he has. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 13 

their noses, with the most outlandish table manners. Pigs 
have more sense and more cleanly (not to say decorous) 
manners than they are usually credited with. 

My mother once on the farm had a pet pig. It was born 
in the winter — a little runt of a fellow, likely to die of hunger 
and cold. She kept it for weeks in a padded box (an ex- 
temporized incubator) by the kitchen stove by day, and at 
night by the sitting room stove, whose fire never went out. 
It was fed from a make-believe nursing bottle. The white, 
scrupulously clean little fellow grew to be a pet, much like 
a puppy, quite as intelligent and more commendable in his 
instinctively correct habits. When hungry he would pull 
at the skirt of his benefactress with a gentle grunt to remind 
her of his wants. If this tender hint was not effective his 
grunt soon became a high tenor squeal. After he was fed 
he would run away and go to sleep, perhaps beside the 
friendly collie dog. 

Both of my grandmothers wore the white cloth caps tied 
under the chin, that were so common with old ladies of that 
day — but not my mother, even in her advanced age. Late 
in life she wore a little affair of black lace on the very top of 
her head, and this with her wavy white hair added to her 
dignity and mature beauty. 



CHAPTER II. 

VERMONT. 

THE house in West Windsor, in which we three children 
were born,* had originally been painted red, with white 
door and window trimmings. But the paint was faded 
and the house looked old ; and we never knew of its having 
been repainted. It was a longish, rambling, one-story building 
with a high attic; its east end was toward the road, and it 
faced to the south upon a wide and open front yard, bounded 
on the farther side by a stone wall, just beyond a large, 
beautiful hard-maple tree. (That tree still retained much of 
its symmetry and beauty nearly sixty years afterward.) 
Toward the west and in plain view of the house was the barn- 
yard — bounded on the north and west by two ample barns. 
An extension of the house to the west was a woodshed and 
storage place, under a part of which was a space for vehicles, 
farm utensils and tools. 

On the farther side of the wall in front of the house, and 
at a slightly lower level, was a kitchen garden. Near the 
wall by the side of the garden were a few bee hives for the 
family honey. These were brought into the attic and kept 
there during the winter. There we boys sometimes amused 
ourselves by listening at the hives to the gentle, low-toned 
hum of the bees, that could be heard almost any time all 
winter; and the place was pervaded by the faint waxy odor 
of the hives. 

The wall continued along the road for some distance; and 
we boys in summer time — often barefooted — would walk on 
the top of it toward the east, to an enormous mass of 
rose bushes that once a year were covered with the most 
beautiful and fragrant red roses — I can recall vividly 
their odor after many decades. Farther along the wall were 

*Edward June 30, 1843, Norman December 30, 1844, Susan some seven years later. 

[14] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 15 

raspberry and blackberry bushes that grew wild on both 
sides of it. They were each year heavily laden with sweet 
and fragrant berries, although they never had any cultiva- 
tion; their annual thick dropping of leaves fertilized their 
roots and repressed the weeds. Back of the house grew 
artichokes — not those of the modern hotel table (brothers of 
the thistle), the base of whose bracts we nibble after dipping 
them in mayonnaise— but a tuber that grew in the ground — 
the real Jerusalem variety, that we used to eat raw as we 
would a carrot or a toothsome turnip. There also was a 
bunch of lovage which annually grew a great mass of leaves 
with large hollow stems that were fragrant with a pleasing 
odor all their own. We used to cut little rings from them 
to cook with candy and certain condiments and foods, to 
which they imparted a pleasing flavor. But the plant was 
never thought of as a remedy for sickness. 

Grandfather Bagley's house was over the hill and out of 
sight, a third of a mile to the east. There, almost equally 
with our own home, was our play place through those few 
early years. The house was old then, and had evidently 
not seen a paint pot for decades. There was a good barn across 
the road. By 1906 that house and barn had disappeared, 
only a few bricks and stones of the foundations remaining. 
In the house there had been an old fashioned brick oven, 
which fixed the origin of the house as of an earlier date than 
our own. This oven was never used as such in my time; 
the modern stove had succeeded it some years before; it 
was a storage place for certain things that needed to be hidden. 

When I was a very little chap the family lived for about 
two years in Windsor village. My father was in poor health, 
and on advice took up during this time a lighter occupation 
than farming. He drove a wagon for a distributing company. 
He was advised also to take a daily morning plunge into a 
pond of water, which he foolishly did until far into the autumn. 

We lived on the east side of the main street of the village, 
in a house that was one story high on the street, and three 



16 THE MARCHING YEARS 

stories down the bank in the back yard, where we looked 
off across the Connecticut river to the Cornish hills. 

My memory is dim as to most of the events of that 
village life, but some of them stand out prominently. I 
remember being nursed through measles there, and that I 
had later a severe earache, for which my mother inserted 
into Ae ear the diminutive hot core of a baked onion. It 
must have been the left ear, for years later the hearing of 
that ear was found to be less acute than the right — a condition 
that was permanent. 

It was a family tradition, for which my mother vouched, 
that before I had discarded skirts I was one day playing with 
other children among some freight cars at the station, and 
fell in front of a car that was being slowly pushed along the 
track by some workmen. The freight cars of that day were 
small affairs. Just as a forward wheel struck my loose 
clothing a workman jerked me away, tearing out a piece of 
the cloth, which was left under the wheel. I have no memory 
of the incident, and the story may have been invented by the 
other children to account for the torn clothes; but my mother 
believed it. What a misfortune that the human brain should 
be unable to register its observations and remember them 
until about the fourth year of life! 

A later event is recalled vividly, namely, my setting fire to 
the house. One evening when the family and some visitors 
were sitting in the dining room downstairs, I was allowed to 
go on an errand alone upstairs with a lighted candle — having 
a reputation (with my mother) of being "very careful with a 
lighted candle." I had to enter a closet containing numerous 
garments hanging by nails driven into the walls; there were 
no hooks. Among these a quilted woolen petticoat caught 
my notice. I remembered then the queer odor of burning 
wool; whereupon a curious psychological phenomenon took 
place. By a strange freak of juvenile diabolism the candle 
was held under a projecting point of the garment until a slight 
crisping sound and the peculiar odor were produced. Then 



THE MARCHING YEARS 17 

appeared a black spot at the burnt point. This was ominous, 
for it might be a telltale. But there was no fire to be seen — 
nothing but the black spot, and I turned the garment so as 
to hide the spot, and ran downstairs. There, among the 
family, some sort of fun was going on that drove all thought 
of the black spot out of my mind. In half an hour the smell 
of smoke was perceived in the house, and there was a rush to 
locate the fire. It was found in the family closet upstairs; 
the clothing was on fire. The men ran for buckets of water; 
but an Irish house girl boldly tore from their nails the burning 
garments, and at her peril stamped out the fire on the bed- 
room floor. The floor was charred a little in one or two 
places. 

Numerous were the conjectures as to the origin of the fire. 
It was soon learned that a small boy had gone to the bedroom 
shortly before with a lighted candle. That must be the 
explanation. But his mother scouted such a theory; it was 
impossible; the boy was always careful with a lighted candle! 
In the excitement the boy forgot all about his exploits with 
the petticoat, until he overheard himself being discussed — 
then he remembered and, as he was not interrogated directly, 
he kept still. Indeed he could not see how the petticoat 
could have started the fire, because he had not seen a blaze. 
There was no blaze, but the garment was lined with cotton, 
which held and spread the fire, until heat enough developed 
to cause an outburst of flame. 

That night when the boy was put into his trundle bed, 
pulled out over the charred floor, he cried for fear he should 
fall through the boards into some abyss below. He was 
naturally timid, and the thought of his possible responsi- 
bility for the calamity may have troubled him. Years after- 
ward, when he was a man, he told his mother the exact 
truth about that fire. She believed he was joking, and would 
never take his statement seriously. So he escaped convic- 
tion at the time of the fire; and his after-confession was 
discredited. It was a dangerous but not unique immunity. 



18 THE MARCHING YEARS 

My life up to twelve years in Vermont was the boy's 
romantic world of wonder. My elder brother and I had to 
work at times, but never much, and the work was chiefly 
the family chores, consisting of short and varied tasks. We 
played a great deal, and had all sorts of incentives to play. 
The hills, the woods and the brooks invited us. We had 
many playmates, numerous cousins whom we visited and 
received, and at each of our houses and barns and farms were 
varying opportunities in games and exploits. Each visit 
meant also a feast, for my mother and all the aunts were 
good cooks, and all had the old New England notion of 
hospitality. All visitors must eat, and eat a great deal. 
Any failure to eat with apparent relish was a discourtesy 
to the cook and the food. 

Among the Vermont hills were many little farms, and 
numerous diversions between times — hunting, fishing and a 
great variety of occupations, due to the many kinds of 
industry carried on within the boundaries of a single farm. 
And each of the tasks as it annually recurred was a novelty 
to the boys; so, if the task was not too long, it took on the 
character of play. 

One of the early harbingers of spring, as the sun warmed 
the tree trunks and branches, and began to melt the snow — 
long before the snow had disappeared in the woods — was the 
running of sweet sap under the bark of the hard-maple trees. 
Then there was some work and vast fun for the boys. The 
sap buckets of wood were brought out from their storage in 
the woodshed loft; their hoops driven tight, they were filled 
with water for a time to swell their wood; then the inside of 
each was thoroughly scalded. This done, they were carted 
to the sugar woods with a lot of wooden sap spouts that had 
also been scalded, and a great, oblong, shallow sheet-iron 
pan for the boiling down of the sap. The pan was scrubbed 
clean and fixed on top of a rude furnace made of bricks and 
stones, with a low chimney at the farther end. The boys 



THE MARCHING YEARS 19 

helped gather the wood for the fires, and afterward helped 
at the firing. 

Then the trees were tapped; a shallow hole, two or three 
feet from the ground, was bored with an auger. Into this a 
sap spout was driven. This was a plug of wood a few inches 
long with a small hole lengthwise through its center, the 
upper half of the projecting part of the spout being shaved 
away so as to expose the hole as a groove. If the conditions 
were right, the sap began to flow at once, drop by drop. A 
sap tub to catch the fluid was suspended to a nail driven into 
the tree at a convenient place. 

Maple sap in prime condition looks like water with the 
faintest possible amber tinge. It has a sweetish taste, and 
a faint pleasing aroma. While we all liked the taste of it, I 
do not recall that anyone ever drank much of the sap — not 
even the children. They had visions of coming hot biscuits 
with butter and hot maple syrup, and could not waste their 
emotions on sap. The sap was gathered by a man carrying 
two large buckets suspended from the tapering arms of a sap 
yoke. This device was a dug-out piece of wood, fitting the 
shoulders easily, with a deep half-circle notch to fit about the 
neck, and with arms projecting well beyond the shoulders. 

My brother and I were left many hours at a time to keep 
the fire going under the boiling pan. It was an easy job, 
merely to throw on sticks of wood and poke the fire occasion- 
ally. Three-quarters of the time we were idle, and toward 
the end of the process the heat had to be reduced by cutting 
down the fire for fear of harming the syrupy product. 

When the concentration reached a certain point, the fire 
was put out, and the thin syrup was taken out of the pan for 
further concentration in a large cauldron mounted near by, 
or else, as was usual with us, owing to the small number of 
producing trees, taken down to the house to be sugared off 
over the kitchen stove. Here my mother presided with 
ample skill. She used a slow fire, and skimmed off every 



20 THE MARCHING YEARS 

particle of foreign matter — scum — as it floated to the top of 
the boiling substance. 

Once when we were tending fire in the woods I suffered 
one of the great humiliations of my life. Weeks before, 
somebody had given us a pack of very old and much worn 
playing cards, and taught us the game known as "High, low, 
jack and the game." Another name for it that we learned 
later was "Old Sledge." Who this benefactor was is wholly 
forgotten, if benefactor indeed he was; for we soon learned 
that our maternal grandmother strongly disapproved of 
cards, especially for boys. She was not an austere person; 
she had a loving heart for all hopeful boys. She was not 
specially religious; she rarely went to church, and was not a 
church member, and she never preached to us; but she hated 
meanness, and discouraged deception and rude and un- 
generous conduct, and she believed that cards held for boys 
some snaky deviltry. We were positive that we were proof 
against any bad influence of the cards, but we found ourselves 
a little ashamed of doing anything that she frowned upon; 
so we fell to playing surreptitiously, although our parents did 
not object to our playing, except that it grieved grandmother. 
We played in our room, in the barn, behind the barn, any- 
where we happened to be together and alone, for the pack 
was always sure to be in the clothes of one of us. 

On the day of my humiliation we were alone, tending the 
fire. In a lull of work we sat on a log, got out the cards and 
began to play. After a few minutes we were startled to see 
in the distance a much respected neighbor approaching. We 
felt instantly that we had a great deal of character and repu- 
tation to maintain ; we must hide the cards. I had on a large 
homespun woolen frock, fastened at the throat and wrists by 
buttons and at the waist by a belt. Above the belt it made 
a capacious and wonderful hiding place for things — it had 
held quantities of apples, nuts and cake on occasion; and 
into it were instantly thrust the gathered-up cards. Then 
we arose and greeted the neighbor, like faithful custodians 



THE MARCHING YEARS 21 

and firemen. He complimented us on the ideal flow of the 
sap and the pile of wood we had in reserve. It was evident 
he had not seen the cards. Just then perhaps the fire needed 
poking; anyway, it was necessary to show that we had dex- 
terity, so my brother poked the fire and I took a big stick 
of wood, bent myself forward, swung it back to get momentum 
to drive it powerfully into the furnace — and the cards fell 
out on the ground! 

What happened the next few minutes is hazy in my 
memory. I do remember vividly that a small boy had very 
hot ears and cheeks — so hot that he could think of nothing 
else — and that this heat passed off slowly. It was an im- 
mense relief to find that the neighbor had gone. 

No, we did not burn the cards! But after that the game 
lost much of its fascination for us, and before long we dropped 
it altogether. We had played too much, and did not touch 
a card again for many years. We had squeezed the orange 
dry, and it wasn't very sweet, anyway. 

The sap flowing season was always short; soon enough it 
ceased, and not long afterward the buds began to swell; 
then the leaves came out, and the trees began the slow process 
of closing up, by a healing growth, the auger holes that had 
been bored into them. Some of the older trees had a dozen 
such evidences of repair in as many stages of progress, per- 
haps one or two of them showing complete closure. 

From the sugar woods we turned, in the spring, to other 
activities. We unbanked the mass of straw, compost and 
earth that had been piled two feet high about the house 
foundations the fall before, to keep out the cold of winter, or 
rather to keep in the heat. We carted the muck and 
compost from the barnyard to the fields, where it would do 
good. The men plowed the little fields, and we boys fol- 
lowed along — amused at the rolling-over earth as the plow- 
share slid its nose forward under the ground — until we were 
tired. The plow occasionally turned up the nests of mice 



22 THE MARCHING YEARS 

and moles, and this interested us, and evoked our sympathy 
for the helpless little things. 

The sowing of the grain and the planting of the corn, 
potatoes, beans and peas was an entertainment, and we 
helped in little ways — perhaps carrying the seed, and cer- 
tainly carrying the jug of drinking water for the workers. 

There was a glory to come in the harvest, but none such 
nor all its vast significance could equal for our boy imagina- 
tion the bursting expansion and the manifold revelations of 
the springtime. 

The long winter gave way to melting days and freezing 
nights. Later the freezings vanished, and then the frosts; 
and the sun began to warm the skin of the earth each day 
beyond the measure of the heat radiation by night. This 
gave the eager rootlets their chance to take in moisture, and 
through their terminal laboratories to add the needed sap 
extracts and drive it all upward. So the buds swelled and 
pushed their whorls of tiny leaves out to the light and to the 
chemistry of the green. Each day we could note their 
lengthening and unfolding. 

We trod the plowed-up dark earth; our feet felt its soft- 
ness and we took in its infusing fragrance as we followed 
afoot the plow and harrow. Then we prepared for a new 
creation; we buried dry, inanimate seeds; then a few days of 
waiting and the new life was discovered at eventide to speck 
the field. In the morning there was a verdant sheen over 
the field, and soon it was hidden by the purest, rich green — 
to fill and rest and delight our vision. Not the wind-waving 
of the tall grain and the lush corn fields — inspiring sight that 
it was — could equal to our eyes and imagination the wonder 
of that first miracle of virgin green stealing out of the dead 
earth. 

We enjoyed every phase of the spring farm work. Much 
of the plowing and hauling were done by oxen, and the yoking 
and driving of these gentle and slow moving animals was 
always an interesting performance, in which a boy could 



THE MARCHING Y V E A R S 23 

take part. He could carry a whip and shout haw and gee, 
which brought the animals to the left or right. This com- 
manding of something vastly more bulky than himself, and 
seeing it docilely do his bidding gave him a great sense of 
authority — like a man commanding an elephant, and seeing 
his hulking form obey. 

Shearing the wool from the sheep was one of our tasks of 
the settled warm weather of spring or early summer. The 
time was fixed (early in June, usually) when the sheep would 
be least likely to shiver and get sick after losing their fleeces. 
Spring-opening shears were used, which in the hands of the 
shearers worked so rapidly that they occasionally snipped 
out small pieces of the skin. This lessened the wool growing 
surface of the sheep, and was therefore unprofitable, besides 
being brutal and proof of poor workmanship. There was 
little evidence that these wounds of the skin were specially 
painful, perhaps because of the high speed of the shears. 
The sheep rarely suffered any sickness from thus suddenly 
being deprived of all their clothing — which ought to serve 
as a comfort to mothers who fear that their daughters will 
take cold and die from going out with thin clothes. 

The wool merchants always paid a higher price for wool 
that had been washed on the sheep, than for unwashed wool 
— and, I think, cheated themselves by doing it, for the wash- 
ing took out but little of the dirt and debris of a year's 
accumulation. It was done in some deep pool of a brook or 
river, where the washers could stand waist deep in the water. 
The sheep were thrown to the washer one by one, and for a 
minute or two each fleece was given a little rubbing and 
scrubbing — just enough to call it washing. Sometimes sev- 
eral days elapsed after the washing before the sheep were 
sheared, and a stock of fresh dirt was acquired. 

If the washing pool was cold, as it often was, the washers 
thought they were in danger of taking cold, and so sometimes 
took swigs of whiskey or rum as a prophylactic. In my 
observation they usually took it clear — straight from the 



24 THE MARCHING YEARS 

bottle. It was a terrible dose, and was given me one chilly- 
spring day when, being wet to the skin, it was thought I 
might be in peril. What I needed was an overcoat, not rum. 
One swallow was enough; it was a coal of fire traveling down 
my poor little gullet, and burned after it entered the stomach. 
For any boy of ten or eleven, in danger of taking to drink 
later, I commend a dose of half a dozen small swallows of 
this terrible stuff, taken clear in rapid succession out of a 
bottle. One such dose ought to be effective in turning the 
fellow against it for the rest of his life. Of course no sheep 
washer was ever prevented from cold-catching by taking a 
dose of liquor; it would rather predispose to this disorder. 

The hardest, the hottest and sweatiest work on the hill 
farms was the haying. Then sometimes the neighbors 
would join in the work — "change works" as we called it — 
so that there might be half a dozen hay makers working 
together for a few days on our little farm. My father and 
maternal grandfather would sometimes, if the weather was 
hot, serve out to these men in the mid-forenoon and mid-after- 
noon some toddy made of sweetened water and a little rum. 
The men came into the dining room for it, and were back at 
work in a few minutes. Once or twice a small boy of an 
investigating turn of mind, hanging about the table, drained 
the few drops left in the glasses, after the men had gone. 
It tasted very good to him; so good that afterward, when 
nobody else was in the house, he tried to reproduce the toddy, 
and swallowed a little of his concoction. But it did not taste 
right; he had evidently not used the right proportions of the 
ingredients, or his taste was perverted by the fear of being 
discovered. 

When the Maine liquor law was passed in Vermont, my 
grandfathers, who were strictly temperate, but not teetotalers, 
were indignant, because they thought the law abridged their 
natural personal rights. They always had rum in the house, 
and rarely drank it; when they did, it was in minute quantities 



THE MARCHING YEARS 25 

and greatly diluted with water — as alcoholics should always 
be taken, if taken at all. 

The average rural Vermonter of that day was an upright 
person. Good neighborliness was the rule, and there were 
few disagreements of a serious sort. They were a sober 
people. I recall seeing there but one intoxicated man, and 
he was a fellow of no character, and notoriously a tippler. 

On some political questions they were very strict. While 
it might be allowable for a man to desire public elective 
office, like that of Selectman, or town representative in the 
Legislature, and while a man might ask one friend, pledged 
to secrecy, to manage a canvass for him, he must not on any 
account ask a casual citizen to vote for him. If he did this 
and it became known — and if he did it, it would become 
known — he would surely be defeated, as happened to more 
than one avowed candidate. And a man who had this 
experience never outgrew the odium of it — it was told of him 
for many years afterwards. 

The early settlers of Vermont were largely from Massa- 
chusetts. They had come to this new country in the hope 
of avoiding the severe conditions of the old. The new land 
was cheaper, but not more hospitable. They had constant 
work, many hardships and few or no luxuries; but they had 
perforce frugality; they had cheerfulness and a high order of 
self-respect. If they did not know Latin and other classics, 
they had clean bodies, clean clothes and clean houses; and 
all these conspired to industry and helpfulness of each other. 
It was such influences, with the schooling of frugality and 
the enforced knowledge and use of tools and other practical 
devices, that enabled the sons of those Vermont pioneers to 
go out into the world of affairs and succeed. 

The haying experience was an exciting one, and never to 
be forgotten. The use of the scythe was always fascinating 
to the boys. They were learning to mow, but their swaths 
were scraggly and amusing to the expert men. To use the 
whetstone on the scythe with the rapid, graceful swing of 



26 THE MARCHING YEARS 

an expert, and not cut their fingers, was evidence that the 
boys were becoming men, and they were ambitious to try it. 
Our education in this sort was not finished when we moved to 
the land of prairies and mowing machines. 

Turning the grindstone for the scythes, axes and knives 
was a boy's job. It was interesting for, say, ten or fifteen 
minutes ; but the fact that the task frequently lasted an hour, 
has deprived me of any pleasure whatever in remembering 
the function. 

The odor of the cut grass (timothy and clover), and its 
changed odor as it turned to hay, then first became familiar. 
They were always pleasant odors, and whenever perceived 
afterward through half a century, have called back to memory 
those joyous scenes. 

I wonder how many of us ever note that odors are things, 
infinitesimally small particles emanating from the substance 
smelled, which go into our nostrils, to be perhaps absorbed 
into our tissues. The return to us of an uncommon, pleasing 
odor brings a smile to our faces, because our first whiff of 
it years before was associated with pleasure. It calls up 
long-forgotten scenes, voices and faces. For me, after sev- 
eral decades, a whiff from a pile of hemlock lumber always 
recreates the old saw-mill where we played in boyhood. It 
has actually been in ruins for a generation, but it lives again 
in that rare fragrance. 

In mowing, the scythe would occasionally expose a bumble 
bees' nest, and we would kill the bees and taste the honey. 
There was little of it; the taste was sweet but less agreeable 
than the honey of commerce. The cells containing it were 
larger than those of the honey bee; they were globular and 
not so compact and workmanlike. We destroyed the little 
nests ruthlessly — blind to the value of these bees to the 
perpetuation of the very clover we were growing. 

The spreading of the hay in the mow (rhyming with 
now, not hoe) — mowing as we called it — was a boy's duty. 
It was sweaty work and often dusty, and the men who pitched 



THE MARCHING YEARS 27 

the hay frequently tried to bury the boys in it; but they had 
forgotten their own boy ability to climb atop of a pile of 
hay that any athlete could pitch. Many men forget the 
details of their own boy life — especially their thoughts and 
emotions. In the winter when the mows were full of hay 
the boys would, like industrious rats, dig out tunnels or 
runways two feet in diameter in various directions through 
the mass. Rarely would the neighboring boys come to help 
in the digging; but they would always come to enjoy the 
novelty and the play after the work was done. This was 
the sport for many stormy days and very cold days when 
there might not be good coasting for us outside. 

In two seasons of the year the boys turned with glee to 
the brooks and springs — when they were covered with ice, and 
on a hot summer day. Forty rods or so back of our house 
was a spring, under a low, overhanging bank, and by the 
side of a noble elm tree. Years before, it had been dug out 
in the form of a little well that was lined with stone and 
covered with a lid of boards. One or two trout could be 
found in it; they were put there to devour the insects — ex- 
changing one animal contamination for another. In previous 
years an underground conduit of wood had carried the water 
of this spring to the barn; the barn actually was a few feet 
lower than the spring, but seemed to be of the same level, 
or a little higher, and I used to wonder how the water could 
flow to the barn and into the watering trough. In my time 
a small leaden pipe had replaced the wood — it had been 
forced through the larger bore of the wood conduit — and the 
water flowed into the trough through a goose quill in the 
center of a cork driven into the end of the pipe. 

The spring overflowed its walls and formed a little stream 
that ran down a shallow ravine, a tiny brook with a plentiful 
growth of peppermint along its banks. Here a boy in his 
eleventh year built a little dam spanning the ravine, a few 
rods below the spring, and carried the water through a small 
tortuous flume dug in the earth, to a bank some rods away, 



28 THE MARCHING YEARS 

where a piece of old V-shaped wooden eaves trough carried 
the stream to a toy water-wheel which he had built. The 
power of the wheel was transmitted by a crank to a vertical 
wire rod that was made to play up and down like a mill- 
saw. The water was let into the flume by a toy gate, and 
passed through a strainer made of vertical twigs — all to 
simulate the parts of a standard saw-mill. 

He had great pleasure in building the toy, but after it 
had been played with a few weeks, his interest in it waned. 
His parents enjoyed showing it off to visitors with some 
laudation of the boy, which made him blush and feel foolish, 
if he heard it. Then the prize bad boy of the neighborhood, 
bent on pure mischief and without the slightest provocation, 
went alone to the spot and tore up the whole mill — strainer, 
gate, water-wheel, and all. The first intimation any of us 
had of it was his shouting from a hill-top, back of the spring, 
a boastful notification of his exploit. Afterwards he appeared 
to feel neglected because no resentment was shown him, 
and no notice taken of him. As a boy this fellow was several 
shades worse than useless, and was by spells a great trouble 
to the neighbors — and more to his parents — for his badness 
was erratic, irregular and apparently unprovoked. It is 
questionable that he was entirely sane. But in the end he 
did something to redeem himself, for he enlisted in the 
northern army in the Civil War, and died in battle, with 
his back to a tree, facing the enemy and firing until he sank. 

To all of the children the annual advent of the young of 
the domestic animals and the wild animals and birds was 
occasion for delight and wonder. The kittens and puppies 
especially challenged our sympathy because they were born 
blind. Watching for the chickens to come out of their 
shells, and for puppies and kittens to open their eyes kept 
us alert. And the performance of the mother cat in moving 
her family by the nape of each neck was as good as a circus, 
as well as a lesson in the conservation of nature. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 29 

If our experience was at all typical, the study and care of 
the young of animals has a humanizing influence on boys and 
youths in general. The helplessness of the young animals 
makes for sympathy toward all defenseless things. The 
utter dependence of the human infant has, of course, the 
strongest appeal of all, but that is for adults and girls mostly, 
not so much for boys, who often regard babies as an imperti- 
nent intrusion. But a boy of the right timber is ready to 
fight for a mistreated lamb or puppy, a birdling or a younger 
child; and that spells character of a commendable sort. 

One day a small boy rushed into the Vermont home to 
tell his parents that he had found under an overhanging rock 
on the far side of a hay field a litter of kittens; and that the 
old cat wasn't there. His father asked about their color, 
and when told they were black and white, he said "skunks." 
There was no water near the overhanging rock, but there is 
reason to believe the little things died of drowning soon 
afterward. 

One of my very early memories was the departure for 
California of my uncle Edwin Bagley. He was a tinsmith, 
and worked at his trade there. In four years he returned, 
and soon thereafter bought a small rifle and began to educate 
his nephews in shooting. I was eleven, and soon learned to 
shoot with some precision. We shot squirrels, woodchucks 
and other game. One day my mother allowed me to take 
the gun and go out into the woods alone to hunt. To me 
now her faith in my reliability with a gun is unaccountable. 
It was as blind as it was when, some years before, I had set 
the house on fire. But in this later case she was justified 
by the result, for I came home whole, with myself and the 
gun unharmed — and I had shot a chipmunk. That was the 
last of my hunting. Before many months we were on the 
prairies, where work was our play — nearly all the play we 
had — and there was no hunting or fishing for me. There 
were no trout streams or wooded hills. There were for a 
few years prairie chickens, and my brother hunted them a 



30 THE MARCHING YEARS 

few times only. That sport was left for city visitors whom 
we despised as intruders. 

My uncle determined to give four or five of us boys a 
good Fourth of July celebration. I was the youngest boy. 
We had a wonderful time, but in the end a great grief came 
to me. The plan was to have a tent on a hill where we should 
sleep, the night of the third, and to fire off a lot of fireworks 
there in the early morning. We played we were soldiers 
who might be attacked by an enemy; so we took turns at 
standing guard with the gun outside the tent. Really none 
of us slept much that night. We cooked and ate supper 
there. In the early morning, after a hurried snack, we shot 
off our fireworks. The program was carried out faithfully. 
When we came down to our house we ate again; then took 
a rest till four o'clock, when we were to meet at Grandfather 
Bagley's house for more and greater celebration of fireworks 
and more eating. 

I took a nap on the promise to be called in time; but at 
four o'clock my people thought it would be wicked to waken 
a boy out of so sweet a slumber. I wakened finally with a 
start, and the clock struck six — the celebration was over, 
and I had missed it. Many hard knocks have come since 
that day — sorrows of many sorts — and have been borne 
with what fortitude was possible, but not in all the years 
has one come with what seemed such poignant intensity as 
the grief that was crowded into the striking of that hour. 

In the winter we helped break roads through the snow 
with horses or oxen with sleds, and we shoveled the snow 
where it had drifted deep. That was work. We coasted a 
great deal for fun. A few of the boys had sleds for coasting; 
they were aristocrats. Sleds cost money, and most of the 
boys had none of this, nor could their families afford luxuries; 
and a sled for a boy was a luxury. 

The commoner coasting device was a thing called a 
jumper; and that no boy was too poor to have. It was 
lighter in weight than a sled; it cost nothing, and could be 



THE MARCHING YEARS 31 

carried under the arm. It was as easily steered as a sled — 
and its sliding qualities were good. It was made of two 
hard -wood barrel staves that were smooth on the outside, 
which was of course the running surface. These were fixed 
about six inches apart by two cross-pieces of wood nailed 
or screwed to -the staves within a few inches of their ends. 
The cross-pieces were connected by a board running length- 
wise, for the rider to sit on. Forty times a day would the 
boys carry their jumpers up a hill for the fun of sliding down. 
It was labor, but never "work," and we came home tired, 
for supper and sleep. In the aggregate of many thousands of 
such coasting trips in those days, a serious accident was 
almost unknown, and I personally never saw one. 

One of the sad memories of those winters is of the cold 
feet, hands and ears, especially the feet. It was the fashion 
among the boys to wear as small boots as possible; we never 
wore shoes in winter, but always high boots. We hated big 
boots, and made fun of the boy who had to wear them. 
Years later, when athletics came into vogue, the footwear of 
boys and young men grew larger, and the fellows were proud 
of it. Tight boots reduced the power of resistance to cold, 
and increased the severity of chilblain, which with loose 
footwear would have been bad enough. None of us ever 
had overshoes. The chilblain was a most painful disorder; 
it was a varying mixture of burning, smarting, aching and 
tingling sensations, and deep congestion of the surface of the 
feet, mostly about the toes, which became dark-red or purple. 
Sometimes the congestion was so deep as to cause an ulcera- 
tion on one or more toes; but this rarely happened to a 
vigorous fellow. It happened to me one winter when I was 
twenty-one years old, and sent me to bed for a week. 

There were no overcoats for the boys; thick frocks and 
jackets had to do. When we were nearly man-grown, we 
began to have overcoats and overshoes, but it was a long 
time before we learned to protect ourselves adequately 
against the cold of winter by large sizes and warm substance 



32 THE MARCHING YEARS 

in our garments. It was after my thirtieth year that this 
sort of wisdom came to me in its fulness. 

In my boyhood and youth a favorite sport for us in the 
winter was the sleigh-ride, with half a dozen or more jolly 
young people in a big sleigh or in a wagon box on bob-sleds, 
for a drive of an hour behind fleet horses. It was great fun 
for most of us, especially when the weather was not very 
cold. I often took such rides, but my memory of this sport 
records that cold feet — actual, not metaphoric — neutralized 
most of the joy of the occasion. 

All the children went to the district school in the winter, 
and those too young to do effective work on the farm went 
also in the summer. We enjoyed the winter schools more 
because the big boys were there. In their hand-ball and 
base-ball playing of that time- — the latter not much like the 
game of today — in their snow-balling, and even in the to- 
bacco chewing of some of them, and the profuse and projectile 
spitting of the darkish juice, they were the hope and admira- 
tion of the smaller boys, who looked forward with ardent 
anticipation to the time when they could do things as 
remarkable. 

In our day the teachers were all women, and the small 
women seemed to be more successful than the large ones. 
There were plentiful stories of a previous time when only 
men teachers were employed in the winter, on account of 
the turbulent character of the larger boys. The teacher had 
at times been obliged to fight to maintain his authority. I 
recall some grave discussions by my elders as to whether it 
was entirely safe or humane to tax a frail woman with the 
responsibility of such a winter school. But the women 
teachers never had any trouble of the sort that had been 
feared. If they laid down the law, as they usually did, and 
insisted on obedience, the big boys might meet them with 
blushes, especially if the teacher were young and good 
looking, but never with a serious defiance. A little teacher 
with fine nerve one day early in the term called up on the 



TRE MARCHING YEARS 33 

floor a big boy who had annoyed her with his indolence and 
loutish disobedience. He was at least a foot taller than she 
was. She quietly told him and the school of his various 
offenses; then she mounted a chair so that she could reach 
him easily, and soundly boxed his ears. He slunk to his 
seat in humiliation, and was thereafter both obedient and 
industrious. And all the other big boys took the cue. 

In rural Vermont at that time there were peripatetic 
teachers of singing, who had classes in neighboring villages 
during the winter season. The singing school, one or two 
evenings a week, was an institution. Many of the young 
people and older children learned to sing, and their specialty 
was church music, although they sang popular songs, and 
took part in choruses in some of the larger villages. This 
education was a great blessing to them, for it gave them 
pleasure, and often led them into other lines of culture. My 
brother and I were too young to have these advantages in 
Vermont; later in Illinois we did have a try at them. 

One of the most noted of these teachers was one Moses 
Cheney, whose work was known by at least two generations 
of youths. Once, when an old man, he came to our house 
and amused us immensely by his boyish drollery and infectious 
cheerfulness. He was evidently a good teacher, and he 
radiated joy wherever he went. He illustrated to us how the 
tune "Old Hundred" might, by being played rapidly, become 
a good dance tune; and how "Yankee Doodle" by a reverse 
process, might become fine anthem music. 

He enjoyed telling a good story, and none such ever grew 

tamer in his hands. He told us of having copied some 

epitaphs from tombstones in or near Burlington. One of 

these ran as follows: 

Here lies the body of old John Hildebrod. 
Have mercy on his soul, O Lord, 
As he would do if he were God, 
And thou wert old John Hildebrod. 



34 THE MARCHING YEARS 

This epitaph was really found in Scotland, not Vermont. It 
is recorded in one of the stories of George MacDonald. 
Cheney had heard of it somewhere and located it in this 
country, probably for better effect in telling. 

In the early fifties of the last century there spread among 
the country people of Vermont a great wave of spiritualistic 
propaganda and excitement. Many simple-minded people 
believed in the miraculous character of the phenomena of 
table tipping and rapping, and of clairvoyance, and that 
these were evidence of the return to earth of departed spirits. 
The phenomena were certainly weird enough, as I observed 
many times in my childhood, and the simple folk could not 
see the manifest absurdity of the thing, and so some of 
them swallowed it whole. Most of them afterward became 
disgusted with the subject, and ceased to talk or think about 
it. No relative of mine ever took the slightest stock in 
spiritualism, and my mother boldly scorned it whenever the 
subject was mentioned. From that day to this in some parts 
of the country, among certain people, this faith has been 
preached, and many have believed in it in spite of the multi- 
tude of proven instances of imposture and fraud on the part 
of the "mediums," and of the further fact that any one of 
a dozen avowed sleight-of-hand experts has been able to 
outdo the mediums in wonder performances. These people 
say the belief has been a great comfort to them, which I 
hope is the case, even if the thing is a delusion and has done 
no other good. It has done the harm of disturbing and dis- 
tracting the minds of some good people who have lost their 
religious anchor, and who have been covered with shame when 
they discovered that those who assured them of communi- 
cating with their departed loved ones have been shown to be 
frauds. And a few have lost their minds or become nervous 
wrecks. 

When we left for the prairies of Illinois the scene changed. 
Then we played little and worked much, and in the fields. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 35 

We were coming to be men, and there were few playmates; 
there were no hills, and few forests and running streams. 
There were no real brooks; there were creeks and sloughs on 
our prairies, which had low banks of dirt — neither rocks, 
gravel, trees nor other features to make the romantic thing 
we called a brook — and they were mostly dry in summer. 

There is no doubt that work for boys, hard work, is a 
good preventive of dangerous mischief. This has been often 
shown in college boys who, by athletics and necessary work, 
escape a lot of later punishment that comes to the idle. 
Certainly my brother and I on the Illinois farm had work in 
plenty, and no time for serious mischief. We didn't even 
acquire the tobacco habit; and the other sophistications of 
city life my soldier brother, by reason of his early death, 
was prevented from ever knowing. To me they came by 
slow degrees and with both joy and grief. There was, how- 
ever, no temptation to use tobacco; I had tasted it once at 
eleven or twelve, and no temptation to ape the bigger boys 
ever led me to try it again. 

Among the Vermont hills in my boyhood there were 
current various dialectic expressions — slang and expletives, 
including many mild swear words, or what stood for such. 
Probably similar habits were in vogue in the rural regions of 
other New England states, where the people mostly lived 
and died in the country and seldom associated much with 
city folks. 

Rarely did I hear the words God, Jesus or Christ used 
irreverently; the words damn and damned were seldom used; 
but I'll be darned, goll darned, gosh and by gosh were in common 
use. By gum and I swan were even very proper expressions. 
By the Lord Harry was a great favorite with even staid and 
religious persons. 

In my hearing there was substantially never a lewd, 
salacious or smutty story or reference uttered. But such 



36 THE MARCHING YEARS 

talk may have been more common than I knew, for vulgar 
speech is often repressed in the hearing of young ears— and 
mine were under twelve — so instinctive it is with most vulgar 
people that childhood ought not to be corrupted. 

There were numerous forms of salutation, exclamations 
and jocular expressions that were peculiar to the country; 
and some of these have gone out to the western regions 
in the wonderful "Expansion of New England." Do tell! 
You dorit say! You don't tell me! How be yout You tell him 
who you be, are examples. Here are others: He is worse than 
all git out; He is working like a house afire; Youll upset 
your apple cart if you dont look out. The word certain was 
by many old people pronounced sartin. 

Sarvent, Sir, was a response to a salutation, and was 
equivalent to saying / am your servant or at your service. 
It was an expression of rather formal politeness, and was 
used in my hearing only by old men, showing that it was old- 
fashioned even then. In our rural districts the people used 
awkwardly and diffidently any language of special politeness. 
They were good folks, but blunt in speech — and blunt people 
seldom use handily the speech of formal courtesy. 

By our modern habits of pronouncing English there were 
many crudities in that old Vermont — although some of their 
accents were classical in England two hundred years ago, 
and they are still in vogue in parts of England. The 
old Vermonters, many of them, said nothin , goin , workin', 
and the like. When demanding rather defiantly payment 
for something, they would say, You fork over; plaguey bad 
meant very bad; collate was used instead of to calculate or 
guess; to bark up the wrong tree was common; an active 
person was spry; an inefficient person was small potatoes; 
a declaration of a doubted or unexpected difference was 
frequently described as a horse of another color; dander meant 
anger — as, he got his dander up; bile instead of boil meant a 
furuncle; nohow and lickety split were familiar; to cowhide 



THE MARCHING YEARS 37 

meant to flog severely ; he is a goner meant the dog was dead ; 
the weight of a thing was its heft; Lord a massey was Lord 
of mercy ; conniption meant a pet of anger ; scrumptious meant 
well gotten up or personally efficient; tarnal was a politer 
swear word than damned; it meant infernal; / sort o' thought so, 
that aire and this ere were often heard; as were critter for 
creature, meaning a member of the kine or bos family; sassy 
for saucy, rassel for wrestle, ketch for catch and gardeen for 
guardian. 

To use the word indeed as an exclamation would smack of 
affectation. I knew a young man who had gone to school in 
a great city and then engaged in business there. He came 
back to his father's farm for a visit, and once was heard to 
use the expression thus far. It was to his great discredit, and 
it was quoted against him for years by the neighbors as proof 
that the city had corrupted him and made him vain. 

So every class of people adopt with avidity the fashions 
and customs that are common to their ilk; and brace them- 
selves against the customs of classes foreign to their own. 
Some rural statesmen have scorned evening clothes even 
after they have been elected to Congress, for fear some of 
their constituents would scorn them. 

My late friend President Charles K. Adams once revisited 
his birthplace in northern Vermont and called on the farmer 
who had bought the Adams home farm some forty years 
before. He introduced himself, when the following colloquy 
ensued: "So you're Charley Adams, be you?" "Yes, I'm 
Charley Adams." "Didn't I hear you'd been keepin' skule?" 
"Yes, I taught school." "Well, didn't I hear you'd been 
keepin' skule in Iowy?" "Yes," said Adams. He had been 
a professor in a college in Iowa for some years. "Well, I 
heerd that you'd been in Michigan." "Yes, I was in Michi- 
gan, too." He was that moment President of Cornell 
University, but had been a professor for many years just 
previous to this time, in the University of Michigan. 



38 THE MARCHING YEARS 

Adams had a boyhood friend who migrated to Michigan, 
entered business and became a millionaire in a legitimate, 
honorable way. He was fond of visiting his old Vermont 
home, and he made various gifts to the community, but the 
rumor of his wealth reached the neighborhood, after which his 
old neighbors, because they could not imagine a man starting 
with nothing and getting a million dollars honestly, began 
to receive him coldly. Then he ceased to revisit the place. 



CHAPTER III. 

ILLINOIS. 

WHEN my father determined to move to Illinois with 
his family, he was met by opposition from his father, 
who begged him not to go. The son was only forty, 
and could see the wisdom of trying to better his condition 
by farming on a richer soil; while to the father, who was 
near seventy- five, any change was a shock. 

We reached the neighborhood of Sycamore, Illinois, in 
December, 1856, after a journey by rail of two and one-half 
days. There were no sleeping cars, but many delays and 
discomforts. In Chicago we found that the process of 
raising the grade of the downtown streets some six or eight 
feet was going forward. In walking three blocks on Lake 
and Randolph Streets we passed up and down stairs from one 
level to the other several times. 

The Illinois Central Railroad tracks were, for quite a 
stretch south of the depot at Randolph and Lake Streets, 
supported on piles driven in the lake some distance from 
shore. I think the tracks are now in substantially the same 
position as then, though of course there are more of them, 
and the shore, by filling in, has been moved far out into the 
lake. 

We lived near Sycamore until spring. Then a farm of 
260 acres of virgin prairie was bought, west of Malta, a little 
village near the west line of DeKalb county, on the Iowa 
division of the Northwestern Railroad , whose right of way 
was the boundary line of the farm on the south. The land 
cost some sixteen dollars per acre, and was bought on long 
time and easy payments; it had to be thus, otherwise it 
could not have been bought at all. A little house of three 
rooms and an unfinished attic was soon built, and the family 

[39] 



40 THE MARCHING YEARS 

moved in. A pair of elderly cream-colored horses, a yoke of 
oxen and various farm utensils were speedily bought, and we 
boys proceeded to help break a hundred acres of the land — 
to break it was to plow it for the first time in its history of 
perhaps a million years. 

On the turned-over sod, tough from its dense network of 
strong roots, the boys planted sod-corn, melons, pumpkins, 
beans and the like. They killed during the summer some 
dozens of rattlesnakes — the small massasaugus variety. The 
next year they killed two or three, and thereafter rarely any. 
Our parents had some curious experiences with the rattle- 
snakes. My father's ears evidently had some peculiarity 
that made him unable to hear certain tones. He could see 
the tremulous, hazy blur of vision made by the rattler's 
tail when in motion, but declared he could not hear the buzzing 
tone it produced. And my mother was one day in great 
danger of being bitten by a snake, whose warning buzz, as 
it lay hidden in deep grass, she mistook for some unusual 
sort of a cricket. She had never before heard the sound; 
and I found her with her hands poking about among the grass 
in search of the cricket, and within a few inches of the coiled- 
up rattler. 

Breaking the virgin prairie was different from ordinary 
plowing. The plow turned a rather wide furrow, but only 
two or three inches deep. The plowshare had to be sharp to 
cut the tough roots of the grass and an occasional "red- 
root" which sometimes was so large that we had to plow 
around it or cut it out with an axe. The red-root was a very 
large, hard root of a small, tough, woody shrub. Every 
mile or so that the plow traveled through the earth the share 
had to be sharpened with a coarse file ; and every few days the 
share had to go to the blacksmith and have its edge hammered 
thinner under a red heat. 

The sod was too tough and tenacious to be broken up 
with a harrow for any ordinary agricultural purpose. To 



THE MARCHING YEARS 41 

render the sod pulverulent it had to lie upturned to the 
weather for nearly or quite a year for the roots to rot. Then 
deeper plowing and harrowing would prepare the ground for 
a regular crop. 

We planted the corn and other seeds by cutting a little 
gash in the overturned sod with a small ax, and dropping 
in the seeds, then cutting another gash near by to close the 
first one, or closing it by a firm blow with the boot-heel. 
Quite a crop of these plants rewarded us — and they had not 
required any hoeing or other attention to destroy weeds. 
Some weeds did, indeed, grow, but not until after our planted 
seeds had a good start. 

Our farm was on the edge of a wide prairie, and for a year 
had only a few rods of fence, save that which was built by 
the railroad company along its right-of-way. Our few cattle 
and sheep roamed the prairie at will, and had to be gathered 
in at night. We traveled across the country, regardless of 
roads, often to Sycamore, which was our metropolis. Once, 
when returning, night and a fog came on, and we lost our 
way. After some confusion and doubt, we gave the horses 
their heads, and they brought us home. In a few years this 
prairie was all settled, and the roads were all on the regularly 
laid out highways. Unimproved roads they were for long, 
and amazingly muddy in a wet time. The wet roads were 
made rough by the vehicles; freezing weather would change 
the rough spots to the hardness of rocks. In the breaking up 
of spring some of these roads were well nigh impassable for 
a week or two at a time. 

In two years after we went west my father brought his 
parents from Vermont, and they lived with us the rest of 
their lives. His mother had, a year before, suffered a fracture 
of a hip — the neck of the femur. She had experienced little 
pain from the injury, but a great deal of agony from the 
wholly useless manipulations of the surgeons. She never 
walked normally afterward, but hobbled about the house, 



42 THE MARCHING YEARS 

most of the time with the aid of a chair which she pushed 
ahead of her.* 

After we had been on the farm four years, an addition of a 
few rooms was made to the house, which added much to our 
comfort. A respectable barn and other outbuildings were 
built; more stock and tools were procured, and farming became 
more successful and satisfactory. The farm was now entirely 
fenced, and some hedges of osage orange and of willow were 
planted along the road; a few fruit trees and some shrubs 
about the house were also planted, but only a few trees of 
any kind to make a grove. Neither did our neighbors plant 
forest trees; nor did more than a small percentage of the 
farmers of the prairies of the middle west anywhere do this, 
unless, as was the case in some states, the government en- 
couraged tree planting by bonuses, reduction of taxes or other 
favors. Little groves are so easily planted, and grow so 
rapidly; they are things of such beauty and so profitable for 
firewood finally, that it is surprising that so few farmers take 
the trouble to plant them. In our case two reasons perhaps 
partially excused the neglect : One the drudgery of the farm 
work, which kept us busy with the most pressing demands; 
the other, the grudging of the few acres of ground necessary 
for the grove, which might be used for a more immediately 
profitable crop. The present and immediate future were the 
chief interests in mind. 

In 1863 my father tried to buy some sheep to add to his 
stock. Failing to find any that suited him in the neighbor- 
hood, he went back East in October and bought a carload of 
his favorite breed and shipped them to Chicago; and drove 
them from there to our home, about sixty miles. 

We continued to develop the farm and the farm work for 
four years, we boys and our younger sister getting each winter 
what education we could in the district country schoolhouse, 
or in the neighboring villages of Dement (later called Creston) 
and Malta. 

*She died February 20, 1865. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 43 

In 1860 occurred the great political campaign that elected 
Lincoln. To our boyish eyes it was the most remarkable 
event that could ever happen. Nor, in any one of the 
fourteen campaigns that have followed, has anything quite so 
thrilling occurred. The republican voters, young and old, 
formed themselves into companies of men and drilled in 
marching, the companies from the different towns vying 
with each other for the best appearance and the largest 
numbers in proportion to the population of their commu- 
nities. They marched nearly every evening to political 
meetings, led by bands of music, and every man carried a 
torch burning a heavy sort of oil that made both flame and 
smoke. The uniform was a cheap cap and cape, both glazed 
and of a bright color. They called themselves Wide- Awakes, 
and marching in column in a moonless night, they made 
a thrilling appearance. The democrats tried by various 
schemes to foil and nullify the effect of the Wide-Awake 
movement, but without success. 

In 1861 the Civil War was upon us, and my brother and 
uncle were early with the Army of the Union, and went to 
Camp Douglas in Chicago to be trained into soldiers. In 
the autumn I went to the village of DeKalb, eight miles 
away, to school. 

I had begun at fifteen to keep a sort of diary, which was 
never more than a brief record of events that occurred directly 
about me. It was faithfully kept for many years, and until 
professional cares in Chicago made it too irksome. Then, 
too, for a daily record it ceased to be of much consequence, 
for it was superseded to a large extent by professional records 
that had to be kept. As I look over that diary now, I am 
rather ashamed of it for its sameness and monotony; and 
for the paucity of any opinions on things, events and people. 
After all, it is perhaps fortunate that the record contains so 
few opinions — otherwise I might have still less respect for 
it. On January 3, 1860, this is written: "Went to school 
and stayed to the debate. Question: 'Resolved, that John 



44 THE MARCHING YEARS 

Brown was justly executed.' Decision in the affirmative." 
On January 6 and 9 "had a sick headache." Think of a 
boy of fifteen having two such attacks in three days! They 
were severe — disabling for a few hours — and it is no wonder 
that the record characterizes them as "damnable." They 
had then been an experience many times a year for two or 
three years, and still recurred afterward in the same way for 
more than thirty years, although toward the end of that 
period growing less frequent and severe. 

The diary contains all shades and varieties of boy chirog- 
raphy. Some days it was written in a hurry, other times it 
shows deliberation and care and more correct spelling. On 
the hurry days it drops back to the earlier habit of wrong 
spelling of certain words; on the careful days these words are 
spelled correctly. It reveals an effort to create a new and 
correct habit — in haste the old habit reasserted itself. So it 
is all through life; we try to drive out the old, bad habits 
by creating new and better ones; but it often requires con- 
stant vigilance for a long time. 

In this farming life we had many interesting experiences. 
One of these was to observe the coming and going of some of 
our neighbors. There was developing in the East the notion 
that whoever came to the prairies of Illinois and settled on 
land bought at fifteen to twenty dollars per acre, was sure 
to get rich. Many families came with too little money to 
make a good start, depending on good prices for a first crop 
to keep them from bankruptcy. Low prices and a poor crop, 
with unexpected expenses, ruined some of them, and a few 
got discouraged and moved away. One of the neighboring 
women, about to leave the country, asked my mother one 
day if she and her family would not have to go too. The 
reply was that we would be obliged to stay and fight it out, 
because we did not have money enough to get away. For- 
tunately our creditor who sold us the farm, to whom we owed 
nearly the whole purchase price, was indulgent, saw that 
we were working hard, and did not press us. Our farm, 



THE MARCHING YEARS 45 

which had cost sixteen dollars per acre in 1857, my father 
sold some dozen years later for over three times as much; 
and thirty years afterward this land was bought for double 
the price my father got. 

At least three of our neighbors were city bred people who 
came west because they had developed the not uncommon 
city ambition to be farmers. Each of them had money 
enough to make a good start; each bought a farm, built a 
house — rather pretentious for the purpose — and each got 
tired and moved away in less than four years. They went 
back to pursuits like, or akin to, those of their previous ex- 
perience, having lost something in grasp of city affairs by 
their years of absence, which meant less efficiency. While 
they had to their credit some new human experience, they 
had acquired a disgust for farming, and had learned little 
from it that could be directly useful to them afterwards. 
But they had had a touch of another side of life; and their 
experience probably was worth all it had cost, for they had 
a better human philosophy. 

My father sold his Malta* farm in February, 1869, and 
moved to Sycamore, with the intention of having a long 
period of leisure, but after a year or two of idleness he became 
restless to get back to farming again. He took a long journey 
through Iowa in search of the ideal unimproved farm for 
sale at a fair price. The ideal was to have a due proportion 
of woodland and prairie, running water, good soil and nearness 
to railroad and postoffice. He traveled slowly with horses 
and buggy, and finally found such a farm near the little 
town of Scranton in western Iowa. He bought the land, and 
he and mother began there, in April, 1871, to make a new 
home; they built farm buildings and developed the property; 
and there he died in 1879. f After a few years mother sold 
the farm and went to live with her daughter. 

*My father was elected town assessor in 1868 — the last year of his residence in 
Malta. I left my "practice" in June and came home to act as his clerk in making out 
his assessment lists. 

fFebruary 20. 



46 THE MARCHING YEARS 

While the family lived at Sycamore my sister Susan was 
married to Mr. Hardin Hatch.* They were soon living in 
Iowa; later were in Chicago for a time, then moved back to 
Iowa, making their home finally in Des Moines, where Mr. 
Hatch conducted a successful business. Finally they moved 
to San Mateo, Cal. 

♦December 20, 1870. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FARM TRAINING. 

FOR a boy on a farm, especially one among the New 
England hills of half a century ago, the revelations of a 
single year were a procession of instructive wonders. 
Each season presented not one but a dozen new processes, 
tools and the use of them, developments and miracles of 
Nature and work, in which the boy often played some part, 
and might always be a keen observer. It was educational 
in a high degree, though the boy did not know it. No boy 
could at the time appreciate it for half its worth; nothing 
but the perspective of time and maturity of thought could 
enable him to do that. 

It is a little startling to see a list of tools and utensils 
that farmer boys formerly had to use or- become familiar 
with before the fifteenth year of their lives. Here is a list of 
a hundred or more of such articles, all within the range of my 
boy experience: Adz, auger, common ax, broad ax, pick ax, 
apple parer, bolts, brush for horses, bellows, buggy, bits and 
bit stock, chisel, cultivator, cradle for grain, crowbar, cart, 
curry comb, corn shelter, corn grinder, coal scuttle, cheese 
press, churn, cider mill, candle moulds, candle snuffers, log 
chain, dog and horse chain, drag, pitch fork, manure fork, 
flail, fan (for grain), fanning mill, gimlet, shot gun, rifle, 
grindstone, hand hammer, sledge hammer, tack hammer, 
hatchet, hoe, harrow, hone, harness, hay cutter, husking peg, 
jug, jack knife, butcher knife, hay knife, corn cutting knife, 
locks, lantern, mallet, monkey wrench, mowing machine, 
mortar and pestle, nails, water pail, milk pail, plow, coarse 
plane, finishing plane, poke, hand rake, horse rake, garden 
rake, reaper, hand saw, buck saw, log saw (two handles), 
shave, square, try square, screw driver, saw horse, shovel, 

[47] 



48 THE MARCHING YEARS 

scoop shovel, coal shovel, spade, scythe, sickle, milking stool, 
steel yards, scales, screws, staples and hooks, saddle and 
bridle, sap yoke, sled, bob sleds, sleigh, sap tubs, sap spouts, 
sap pan, tacks, threshing machine, tongs, steel wedge, whet- 
stone, wagon, ox yoke and yardstick. The list could be 
considerably increased. 

Almost as surprising is a list of processes of Nature and 
work covered by one twelvemonth. Here are a few of them — 
something over sixty : Chores : Milking the cows; taking them 
to and from pasture in summer; feeding the animals — horses, 
cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry; watering them all; putting 
the animals in and out of the barn daily in winter, the cattle 
in stanchions; keeping the stables clean; bringing in wood; 
taking out ashes; keeping in repair and in working order the 
many tools and machines used on the farm. This last is one 
of the most useful and educative of the whole list. 

In the house: Churning; helping make cheese; making 
candles by repeatedly dipping them in molten tallow floating 
on hot water, or by pouring the hot tallow into moulds; 
pounding things to powder in a mortar — allspice, pepper, 
cinnamon and cloves; percolating the ashes with water to get 
lye, and then the making of soft soap with this in combina- 
tion with the saved-up refuse grease, the reaction taking 
place under boiling heat. 

Out-of-doors: Felling trees; sawing logs; splitting them; 
hauling the logs or wood on sleds ; splitting rails ; making rail 
fences; gathering stones about the farm; making stone wall; 
maple sugar making; grafting and budding trees; fertilizing 
the soil from the barn accumulations; plowing; harrowing; 
planting and sowing seed; hoeing and cultivating crops; 
haying, involving five different processes; grain harvesting; 
threshing; corn cutting, shocking and husking; storing seed 
corn; pulling beans and peas; threshing them; digging and 
gathering potatoes; harvesting apples; making cider; paring 
and drying apples for winter ; turning the grindstone ; banking 



THE MARCHING YEARS 49 

up about the house for winter; gathering butternuts, hickory 
nuts, beach nuts and filberts. 

Animal industry: Caring for the young animals, colts, 
calves, lambs, pigs, chickens and other poultry, as well as 
puppies and kittens; washing and shearing the sheep; slaugh- 
tering animals for food; salting and otherwise preserving the 
meat; making sausage; taking wool to the carding mill and 
watching the making of rolls for the women folk. 

Other things being equal, any boy having such a training 
has a positive lead in the grasp of things over the city boy, 
who has been deprived of it. Any boy fortunate enough to 
have such experiences, and having at his side one man with 
intimate knowledge of the meaning of it all, is, without 
knowing it, in the midst of a cardinal course in a world uni- 
versity. But it is by the veriest chance that a boy has such 
a teacher to help him ; and so he is likely to miss the intellectual 
thrill, and fail to get the real starting point of making his 
experience consciously educative. 

Why are non-college men of the intellectual life more 
efficient in attacking the problems of life than college men 
not technically educated (if it be true)? 1 — More keen in 
observing cause and effect. 2 — Lack of curiosity of the col- 
legian; lack of desire to know what makes the wheels go 
round. The academician is full of the things he has learned 
and remembered. The non-college man of the same age and 
years of thought has lived his four years working and think- 
ing in things of the world — its people and their processes of 
thought and action — so at his twenty-second year he has 
given twice as much thought to these matters as his neighbor 
who has at the same age just graduated from a college with 
a degree. 

While the collegian has for four years spent his spare time 
from his studies and recitations (sometimes stealing time 
from them) in the various social, club, athletic and artistic 
activities of the college, his neighbor boy has spent much 
more of his time in home life activities and learning how to 



50 THE MARCHING YEARS 

get on in the world, much less time in social amenities. So 
at twenty-two the uneducated boy is less elegant, less at 
home in society than the A.B. neighbor, but can do more 
effective things. He, maybe, cannot play foot-ball or base-ball 
or dance as well, but he has handled more tools and is defter 
with them. 

A few years after our boy experiences, the educators 
found out that all boys and some girls, especially the city 
bred, needed the touch of the tools. Then came manual 
training schools, where work was done with a few tools and 
in a narrow range of effort, but with vast benefit to the 
educational product, being done under expert observation, 
and being standardized with fixed credit values. 

The boy on the farm is always unconscious of how much 
he is being educated; of what ultimate value his growing 
knowledge and knack may have. But if he is naturally 
industrious, has a sense of humor, can see beyond his sky- 
line, and has not been betrayed into despising the small 
and present things, his days of work are sure to be joyous, and 
a conscious part of a great building for the future. Other- 
wise, he has a dimmed vision, and his work is apt to be only 
a matter of drudgery — perhaps despised at the moment, and 
waiting for years to be appreciated by him at its real value. 

The farmer boy of today has, if he is sensible enough to 
grasp it, a great advantage over those of a former time, in 
the large amount of valuable literature being constantly 
issued by the Government through the agricultural and other 
departments. Good use of such advantages, with a few 
months each year in school, for the right kind of a boy, is 
enough to set him on the road toward scholarship, if he can 
avoid hating his daily toil. But the average farmer boy 
needs also some starting impulse toward an intellectual life 
— the stimulation of some larger and maturer mind, some 
book or school experience, that may open his eyes, if only for 
an hour. For it often happens that the impulse to such a 
life is sudden, like a new birth religiously; and even a brief 



THE MARCHING YEARS 51 

association with the right sort of man, or the reading of the 
right kind of a book, perhaps a primer of knowledge, may 
open for a boy a current of thought that shall be the guiding 
motive of his whole after life. 

In my early days on the farm there were few books within 
the comprehension of members of the family, and mostly not 
of the best sort. And we did not have the teacher with a 
vision.* There were too many cheap weekly papers, whose 
chief attraction was lurid and exciting fiction that absorbed 
the souls of the children, and dissatisfied many of them with 
their environment. The district country schools dealt with 
the few rudiments of learning — really the tools of learning 
and human intercourse; they taught little about books and 
literature — nothing that I remember that ever led us into 
a course of reading of the best books. 

I read so many of the novels of those cheap publications 
that at fifteen or younger the point of satiety had been 
reached; disgust came on, and a vow not to read another bit 
of fiction. That vow was kept for six or seven years, and 
was broken only when a friend who had grown up in a 
bookish family convinced me that "David Copperfield" was 
a beneficial as well as an enjoyable book. This novel was 
read with delight, and helped to create a taste for fiction of 
a wholesome sort, that has fortunately continued. 

A proportion of husky boys, from reading trashy books 
of fiction and adventure, or from some instinctive impulse of 



*One book that I recall vividly was "Papal Conspiracy Exposed," by Rev. Dr. 
Edward Beecher. This, added to the general feeling in the community on the subject, 
tended to impress one that the Catholic Church must be or have been amazingly 
wicked. In my Vermont boyhood Christmas was little observed, as that was regarded 
as specially a Catholic festival; instead we always made much of Thanksgiving Day, 
late in November. Another book (that ought to have been burned) was called "Re- 
markable Events." We boys at eleven to thirteen enjoyed reading it. It was an 
ingathering of lurid accounts of murders, hangings, prize fights, dark days, total eclipses, 
etc. Many of them were illustrated by the crudest wood-cuts. The book had prob- 
ably found its way many years before into the house of my grandparents through 
some subscription book agent. There were a few great books which were never read 
or consulted. One was a Bible Dictionary; another was a little book, very old and 
badly dilapidated, that contained Young's "Night Thoughts on Life, Death and 
Immortality"; another was a larger and imposing volume of Clark's "Commentaries 
on the Bible." How these books came into the family is beyond my knowledge. 



52 THE MARCHING YEARS 

world yearning, are seized with a desire to roam. They may 
run away from home and try wandering for a while. But 
starvation or some other form of hard knocks usually brings 
them back soon enough, and with varying degrees of humilia- 
tion. This impulse might have seized me, but for my natural 
timidity and the fact that at about the wandering age I was 
taken to the prairies, a virgin soil of daily adventure and 
hard work. 

While we were young boys, and before we could read 
understandingly, there came into the neighborhood a wonder- 
ful book. A copy was passed from house to house, and was 
read with absorbing greed. My mother read it aloud to us, 
and its effect was instant and profound in a loathing of 
human slavery, for the book was "Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
Among the boys who were stirred to the depths by this book, 
two out of our family circle went to the war against slavery. 
Both were shot in their first battle — Shiloh — the uncle, John 
Parker Bagley, dying instantly, the other, my brother Ed- 
ward, recovering from his wound, to die of exposure and 
sickness nearly two years later, after having gone unscathed 
through many later battles. 



CHAPTER V. 

SOPHISTICATION. 

THE process of adjustment of a real country boy to the 
ways of a city, with its peculiar shades of civilization 
and habit, is always a curiosity to a mature observer. 
It is more so if the observer has sufficient detachment to see 
the evolution in all its humor and pathos, and especially if 
he has in his boyhood himself been the subject or victim of 
such an evolution. 

It is not certain that the evolution is always from a worse 
to a better moral and spiritual condition ; for it often happens 
that, measured by the larger values of life, the simple ways, 
emotions and ambitions of some country people are superior 
to those current in cities. But it is an evolution that the 
boy who yearns for the city is anxious to make, and he 
believes he can make it in short order. He is unwilling to 
admit, even to himself, that the way is long and beset with 
difficulties. He begins by aping city ways that he thinks are 
good, and soon or late takes on some of its foibles, and per- 
haps some of its sins. His first attempts are likely to be 
crude; if he is aware of this fact, he keeps on trying. He will 
have a hard enough time at best; and certain bad ways he 
has fallen into, and the unmeant neglect of his parents, 
frequently make his transformation a great deal harder. 

Usually his greatest handicap is his own conceit — his 
diffidence and bashfulness — which are at bottom always 
egoistic emotions. He constantly introspects, and yearns to 
be superior and greater than he is. This is a noble desire, 
only it leads him while yet a small boy into habits that may 
harm his entire career. It causes him to parade his own per- 
sonality and to "show off" in a way demoralizing to himself 
and offensive to others. 

[53] 



54 THE MARCHING YEARS 

As he grows from childhood to youth, his diffidence out- 
side his own home develops more, which leads to other and 
further troubles. He becomes obsessed by the fear that he 
may appear awkward and blush with shame, while he is an 
hourly exhibition of awkwardness. Another fear is that in 
the process he may make a blunder and become a laughing 
stock for others — and he is a blunderer incessantly. He may, 
when among his fellows, make fun of another, but he is in 
terror of being laughed at in the presence of those whose 
good opinion he covets. He is fearful he may show some 
lack of common knowledge that will stamp him as an igno- 
ramus. In his efforts to avoid this, he becomes reserved and 
taciturn; or when he does speak he tries to say some wise 
thing that will do him credit — and often what he says neither 
does him credit nor helps others. 

He would never in a burst of confidence say to an acquaint- 
ance, "I don't know anything about this matter, or how 
to behave on this occasion. Will you tell me?" Such a 
confession would reveal his ignorance — which he fancies 
that he has hidden from those about him — and it would 
humiliate him. He could never lead another into comfortable 
conversation, because that would be to forget himself and 
think of what the other might wish to say, and he could not 
do that; he is constantly thinking of himself and what he 
shall say, and whether it is to credit or discredit himself. 

If he should attempt to talk to a girl he might wish to 
please, his tongue would probably get dry, and his conver- 
sation also, the while he would be pulling at his buttons or 
putting his hands in and out of his pockets several times a 
minute, in order to escape from his embarrassment — and 
without succeeding. 

Once on a time a country boy of sixteen went away from 
home to school for the first time. It was to a high school in 
a small city some miles away. He had always lived on the 
farm, and knew but few people, and they mostly his neigh- 
bors, good country folk. He was not clothed after the fashion 



THE MARCHING YEARS 55 

of city boys, and he worked for his board in a city family, 
and a part of the time he slept on a cot with insufficient 
blankets. When he entered the school he was in a new 
world of novelty and wonder. He was actually studying the 
rudiments of Latin. Everything charmed; the schoolhouse, 
its bell sounding the call to school, the children going to 
school and from it, and the teachers. He walked on air. 
Even the chores he did night and morning took on a glamour 
of romance. He was in a city. The friendly mooing of 
the cow he fed, watered and milked, was music. 

In the schoolroom he soon discovered a picture of art and 
beauty that was unique in his world. On the opposite side 
of the room, sitting in a group, were half a dozen girls in 
varied autumnal colors. He had never seen such a sight 
before. No two of them were alike in voice, in complexion, 
color of hair or clothes, in the character of their facial ex- 
pression, or in general personality. There was a variety in 
the doing of their hair and in their ribbons. To his eyes 
each one had some peculiar charm; and the group! It must 
have come out of the clouds. 

Of course their presence stimulated his ambition to study 
and be somebody. He studied hard; and what a joy to 
study! Possibly he was a trifle pompous in recitation, es- 
pecially if he felt sure that he knew the lesson, or thought 
the girls might be looking at him. He must, alas, have acted 
awkward ; and his rapture at his discovery of the picture must 
have betrayed itself to others only too well, as it soon be- 
trayed him; for, a week or two after school opened, there 
happened one day a directing event in his life. In the 
anteroom of the schoolhouse he overheard some girls talking 
on the other side of a board partition; they were talking 
about a boy in the school, to whom they had evidently given 
a sobriquet that spelt awkwardness of several sorts. One of 
them remarked, as though more curiously than unkindly, 
that the boy could not keep his eyes off the girls — he was 
looking at them almost constantly. As he listened it slowly 



56 THE MARCHING YEARS 

dawned upon his mind that it must be he who was thus 
honored. Then he discovered that the weather had suddenly 
become very warm, especially about his face and ears. He 
rushed out of the house and walked away in silence — he 
walked alone and felt very humble. He was a changed boy 
from that hour. He did not know for a certainty which 
girl had changed the weather for him, but he knew after- 
ward that the revelation was good for his soul; and he was 
inwardly thankful to that girl. He could not banish his 
awkwardness at once, if ever, for he could not see it; and he 
had to guess its character and quality. But thereafter any 
toploftiness he may have shown was gone, and he knew there 
were girls in the school only by their voices and by the rustle 
of the clothes of the more expensively dressed of them as they 
passed near him. 

Afterward he often wondered if the girl who revealed 
him to himself knew she was the perhaps unwitting means of 
a metamorphosis which they all must have seen. If she made 
her little speech on purpose to have him hear it — as she 
probably did — she must have smiled many times at her 
success. He never knew, and did not need to know. But 
the event was so determining in his life, that years afterward 
if he could have identified her, living, he would have made 
her some thank-offering to show his gratitude for an unspeak- 
able favor in his boyhood; and if too late for this he would 
have placed a wreath upon her grave, could he have found it. 

The country boy undergoing his metamorphosis into city 
ways is likely to have few close friends; he is probably a 
trifle austere, aloof, introspective, and tries to fool others by 
his unmeant bluff, for such it is ; and he may try it so diligently 
as to come to believe in it himself. He would like to have 
a boy intimate, but he gains nothing in his ambitions 
from those who are as crude as he is; he would like as an 
intimate one who is nearly or quite out of his shell, but he 
rarely can have such, for his pride and diffidence are a bar 



THE MARCHING YEARS 57 

to that sort of frankness that alone would make such intimacy 
possible. 

The boy shows his diffidence again when he tries to thank 
people for something. Psychologically he is afraid he will 
blush; it is an ordeal to him; nobody knows why it should 
be, but it is — like asking a girl to marry you. He will 
blurt out "much obliged" if the occasion is immediate; if 
it is past or long past, so that he must make an occasion for 
his thanks, he will put the ordeal off and off, until he forgets 
it. Later in life he gets over this foolishness, largely by the 
example of others, and especially of those who are wont to 
make their friends blush by their ostentatious thanks. 

The troubles of the youth to a great extent grow out of 
the bad habits of his childhood, especially the showing-off 
habit that is so common, and so little understood by parents, 
and so rarely restrained in any sane way. The fault is really 
as much with the parents as the children. The boys, full of 
conceit, on all possible occasions when strangers or company 
are present, yield to their egotistic inclination to show off; they 
never do it when alone with the family. They do and say 
things pompously, and violate many of the proprieties; they 
put themselves forward, and take and keep the center of the 
stage in their talk and questions. A minority of their fathers 
frown on such things, and utter the ancient gag that boys 
should be seen and not heard. But a majority of them think 
themselves more modern and humane than their predecessors, 
and that the boys ought to have a chance. They lament the 
days of their own repression in childhood; say that their 
children shall never suffer so ; and not only condone these bad 
habits in their children, but rather encourage them; they 
think the outlandishness is "cunning," and they tell of their 
children's exploits in the presence of the children — which 
always makes matters worse. I well recall, in the old Ver- 
mont days, a discussion between two men about some of the 
pranks of a small son of one of them. This one said: "I 
think we oughten to discourage a boy from bein' cunnin'." 



58 THE MARCHING YEARS 

His boy was an egoistic little imp who needed to be dipped 
several times daily in a tub of cold water. The conceited, 
showing-off child, vain of attention and of his own prowess, 
is likely to be brutal toward whomever and whatever he can 
dominate, as younger children and animals. There are some 
cases on record of a brutality of this kind that is positively 
fiendish. The parents are usually blind to this sort of mis- 
behavior of their children, and if they do know and appreciate 
it, they are innocent of any grasp of the egotistic emotion 
which is always back of it. And without that knowledge they 
cannot know the great havoc that is sure to come to the life 
of any boy if the habit continues. 

It is a thing for wonder that so many men forget their 
own emotions in boyhood, and never even try to analyze 
their own earliest psychology. It is just as true that the boy 
is wholly ignorant of his thraldom to a demoralizing emotion. 
Probably if you were to try in the most friendly and heart-to- 
heart way, to make such a boy understand, you would fail. 
But many of them do come later to know, and then they are 
both transformed and transfigured. Most often they make 
the discovery through some accident, or some rebuff at the 
hands of a stranger, rarely from persuasion of a parent or 
friend. If one tries, however gently, to tell them of their 
faults or foibles, they think he fails to understand them, or 
is an enemy. 

The impulse of the boy to strut is first cousin to the 
impulse of the youth and man to talk loud or in bravado, or 
with little giggles of inane laughter. In each case it is likely 
to be a trick to avoid breaking down in embarrassment and 
blushing consciously. Blushing is endurable if we are un- 
conscious of it, not otherwise — to avoid it we are ready to 
do any foolish thing. If these foolish habits continue in 
boys and men, they do so to the peril of their life career. 
They color the conduct and lessen the success of multitudes 
of men. And the habits do continue in a large number of 
persons; no shocks of rebuff or self-discovery or lessons have 



THE MARCHING YEARS 59 

ever broken in on their conceited satisfaction with them- 
selves as they are. 

Many boys come to their senses by or before they 
reach manhood; and many are greatly helped by some one 
of a few potent and fortunate influences. One of these is 
to be thrown with other and strange boys in schools and 
colleges, where by the favor of their fellows they discover 
themselves, sometimes at the cost of a hazing that takes the 
nonsense out of them. Another help is to come up against 
some rebuff or humiliation which hits them full in the face, 
and gives them a sense of their foundation in sand. A few 
there are who, when thus hit, never discover it — and they are 
hopeless, if indeed they are worth saving. 

The greatest help of all — a real salvation to many a boy 
—is to fall in with a likable young fellow, who is frank and 
candid, clean and jolly, not afraid to say he is ignorant of 
many things, or to ask freely for information about simple 
things, thus revealing his own ignorance; a fellow who is 
always friendly and helpful. When a boy has such a friend, 
he has found his hero, and is saved. He is not only saved 
from his bad habits; he is beginning to learn one of the 
greatest of lessons, namely, that only the ignorant or rela- 
tively ignorant are afraid to say they don't know — and that 
the wisest are never afraid to say it, because they can afford 
to say it. 

Sensitive and bashful boys who have some personal 
peculiarity or deformity are sure to suffer from it in spirit. 
I knew a much freckled boy, who habitually breathed 
through his mouth without knowing it, until at the age of 
eleven he discovered it with a shock. The freckles were the 
occasion for many mortifying jokes, but never from any 
member of the family. There were among the neighbors 
certain standing jokes about nearly every unusual event or 
condition that they knew of, and these jokes were repeated 
whenever they could be made to apply, wholly regardless 
of the feelings of those hit by them. The jokes made 



60 THE MARCHING YEARS 

conversation, and eased the diffidence of those who told 
them, especially if a laugh could be evoked. 

I have known one young person — only one — who was not 
annoyed by being freckled; that was a girl who was proud of 
it, because thereby she resembled her mother, whom she 
adored. If the children could always keep in mind the 
fact that freckles come only to a clear, white skin, which 
is coveted by a large part of the human race, it would save 
them some grief. 

As to the mouth breathing, the shock came to the boy 
one day when he was in a factory and much interested in the 
machinery. A machinist said to him in an undertone that 
he ought to keep his mouth closed, or flies and dust might 
get into it. The boy was not slow to grasp the full meaning 
of the remark, and he turned away instantly to hide his 
blushes and chagrin. On closing his mouth and breathing 
wholly through the nose he felt a moderate sensation of 
smothering. This convinced him that for years he must 
have been breathing mostly through his mouth; and if that 
was true, then not only this man had seen it, but everybody 
who had seen him must have noticed the disfigurement — 
everybody except his own family, no member of which 
had ever mentioned the thing to him. The machinist alone 
was his benefactor, his real neighbor. From that moment 
the deformity ended. 

To overcome the mouth-breathing habit constant watch- 
fulness was necessary for many days; finally a new habit 
succeeded the old one, and there was never afterward any 
tendency to relapse. He had a great deal of quiet pleasure 
in that victory, and he never spoke to anyone about his 
humiliation or struggle. And probably no one but himself 
noticed what a change had taken place in his facial ap- 
pearance — for no one ever mentioned it to him. His family 
and friends must have seen some change in him, probably 
without being able to define exactly what it was. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 61 

It is impossible to know whether this was a case of 
moderate adenoids. There was no dullness of hearing, which 
often attends adenoids; but the event showed that even a 
small boy, if sufficiently shocked by ridicule, can by himself 
overcome a mouth-breathing habit, against a sense of suffo- 
cation at the beginning. There can be no doubt that many 
children who are mouth-breathers from small adenoids could 
overcome the habit if they would try. Few of them ever 
try, for want of a compelling knowledge and pride. If they 
do try and succeed, does that discourage the growth of the 
adenoids? Who knows? 

In the case of many parents, the wide-open mouth of one 
of their children is a normal and unavoidable feature, like 
freckles and mother's marks. Parents often take such things 
as a matter of course; as they take lisping and stammering. 
Lisping they regard as some evidence of defect in the organs 
of speech, and remediless; as a cross to be borne humbly, like 
a visitation from God. Stammering is a fault of the nervous 
system, and can be, but rarely is, overcome. Most victims 
fail to try long enough and in the right way. But lisping is 
due to no defect of the organs, and is as unnecessary and 
almost as reprehensible as a dirty face. Any victim can 
correct it any moment if he will observe how his vocal organs 
make the sibilant sounds, and how normal people speak 
them; and will then imitate them — as anyone can. He will 
see that normal talkers make their sibilants by blowing 
through their closed front teeth, against which the tongue 
does not press or even touch; while he makes his by putting 
his tongue against the upper teeth, making the sound of 
th instead of s. To correct the fault one needs only the 
ordinary sense that tells him to seek cover when it rains. 



CHAPTER VI. 

EXPANSION. 

IN Illinois the farm life was interesting, but less so than 
it seemed in Vermont. I did not have sense enough — the 

right kind of sense — to see that farming might be an intel- 
lectual pursuit. The call to the city was strong, and to an 
intellectual life stronger. Every outward seeming of the 
city was attractive to me, the streets, the houses, the stores, 
the public buildings and churches ; the people with their more 
attractive clothes — even the odors of coal smoke that I got 
a whiff of on approaching the town. To attend a high or 
higher school in a city was naturally an early ambition. The 
first experience was in the winter term of 1861—2 in the village 
of DeKalb. This was a great experience; it was educative 
and developmental in a high degree, although attended with 
some hardships, such as doing chores for a family in return 
for my board. It had certain social situations of embarrass- 
ment and chagrin, and there was a dearth of money for 
necessary clothes and incidentals. 

The studies were Latin, mathematics, English grammar 
and incidental subjects. With the exception of Latin they 
were greatly enjoyed. I entered the school in the beginning 
of September, and remained until the following March, a 
matter of twenty-five weeks. In the middle of November I 
went to Chicago for two days to visit my brother and uncle, 
who were in the volunteer army in Camp Douglas. This 
camp was just west of Cottage Grove Avenue near Thirty- 
first Street. The camp life, the drilling and the military 
thrill produced a great effect on my mind. None of these 
soldiers, and apparently none of the officers, then had any 
idea that the war was to be a protracted one. This mental 
attitude was changed in six months, when a large number of 

[62] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 63 

the regiment, including my uncle, were lost at the battle of 
Shiloh.* This was the battle that gave my brother a gunshot 
wound in the left upper arm, from which he recovered. 

At the battle of Shiloh, my uncle, Orderly Sergeant Bagley, 
early in the action was slightly wounded in the arm, and could 
no longer use his gun. Then he gave himself to the help of 
the wounded. He was shot through the heart by a sharp- 
shooter while helping a wounded officer — Lieutenant Crooker 
— from the field. The bullet that killed Bagley grazed the 
back of Crooker, who recovered and lived many years 
afterward. 

The experiences of that school in DeKalb, although 
severe, were of signal value to me, both for the learning ac- 
quired and for the beginnings of a transformation from a 
crude farmer boy to something different — whether or not to 
something better. Some of the experiences were hard 
enough; they were sobering and useful. 

The next summer there came to me, largely from the need 
of earning a little money, an ambition to teach school. The 
only school available for a boy of eighteen was sure to be in a 
country district, not sought by experienced teachers, but 
whatever it was, it would furnish an outlet for some pent-up 
energy; it would be an intellectual effort of a sort; and even 
its diminutive salary would make it a little less necessary to 
ask my father for money — which was hard for me, and prob- 
ably harder for him. 

A school was found in the neighboring town of Milan, a 
few miles south of our home, where the trustees were willing 
to take a youth with nothing to commend him but a county 
certificate and the commendations of some of his teachers — 
nothing unless it was a face that appeared to be five years 
older than it was. The salary was to be twenty dollars a month. 
The term began November 24, 1862, and was to continue 
four months. One of his teachers in Malta gave him a few 
weeks of freshening up in certain studies before he began his 

♦April 6, 1862. 



64 THE MARCHING YEARS 

career as a schoolmaster. There was a family living near 
the school by the name of Downer, with whom he could board 
— a wife of education and fine spirit, a husband who was a 
very good man and one of the school trustees, and two 
charming little children. This family housed, fed and com- 
forted the teacher. He was to pay $1,635 per week for his 
board, and was to have a rebate for doing the chores when the 
farmer was away from home on business, which happened 
frequently. 

A few weeks before the beginning of the term he had met 
in Malta an old farmer of his acquaintance, who lived in the 
school district where he was to teach. He told the farmer of 
his engagement for the school; the farmer took a good look 
at him, and remarked, "You look pretty green to teach that 
school." He looked green enough, without doubt; he had a 
fuzzy little beard that a grotesque prejudice against a razor 
had allowed to grow, and this added to his rusticity. It 
cannot be denied that the farmer had dampened his spirit, 
and given him a more serious view of coming responsibilities. 
There was afterward discovered another reason beside the 
greenness of the teacher for the old man's misgivings: He had 
three children in the school, a man-grown son, a daughter 
twenty-three years old, and a smaller child. The older 
children were not noted for their refinement. The daughter 
had light red hair, whitish eyes, and an air of importance. 

The pupils of the school were found to be of many ages, 
from seven years upward, and the grades and classes were 
numerous. Not many classes had fewer than two, nor any 
one more than eight pupils — and not over twenty pupils, 
all told. With the many classes the teacher was busy every 
minute of the school sessions. The work was agreeable, and 
most of the pupils were earnest and orderly; but before many 
weeks there appeared vague symptoms of friction with a few 
of the older ones. The teacher had introduced some exercises, 
mostly oral, calculated to give a better grasp of the English 
language. These were novel in character and revolutionary 



THE MARCHING YEARS 65 

to the larger boys and girls, whose whole school life had been 
along the old and stereotyped methods of study. It is 
hardly any wonder that they thought the new methods were 
nonsense, especially when offered by a teacher younger than 
some of them, who may have presented his innovations with 
an offensive air of superiority. 

One day a six-footer boy — son of the old farmer — when 
it came his turn to do one of the oral exercises, blurted out: 
"Oh, my God!" His big sister revealed some resentment, but 
less offensively. The teacher offered no rebuke, but explained 
that the exercises were in vogue in the most progressive 
schools in the country, and were solely in the interest of the 
pupils — and went on with the lesson. The session closed 
without further incident, and the children went home very 
quietly, but with furtive glances, as though they expected 
something to happen. 

That night the farmer's wife, in whose home the teacher 
boarded, told him in a kindly way of a rumor that the big 
boys were planning either to throw him out of the school 
house, or visit upon him some other humiliation. He natur- 
ally spent a rather restless night, and went to school next 
morning with an inquiring, if not an open mind. He could 
not see how such a plot could brew seriously when he had 
neither attempted to discipline any of the possible ring- 
leaders, nor quarreled with them or anybody else. The 
school as a whole had been singularly orderly, and most of 
the pupils studious and obedient. That the teaching had 
been poor was likely enough; but it was probably not worse 
than the school had had before; and it could not be denied 
that the teacher earned his salary. 

At the school house the next morning he tried to act as 
though nothing had occurred or could occur to mar the course 
of education going on in that center of learning. The 
children were playing in the yard when he arrived, but only 
one of the older pupils was there — the big girl with the red 
hair and whitish eyes. No one was present when he lifted 



66 THE MARCHING YEARS 

his bell to call the school, and found beneath it a disgusting 
object, meant to humiliate him. It was an amusing anti- 
climax of mischief, and greatly relieved his mind. He dis- 
posed of the thing without observation, rang the bell, and the 
pupils filed in without a look on any of their faces to suggest 
that they knew of the episode, except perhaps on that of the 
big girl, who seemed in an expectant frame of mind, and as 
though she were disappointed at something. Perhaps it was 
because the teacher was apparently amused, and went on 
with the normal work of the school, without rebuking any- 
body or revealing irritation. I have often thought since, 
that she may have been entitled to some sympathy for the 
cowardly desertion by her big brother and perhaps others, 
who had left her alone to do a foolish thing that they perhaps 
inspired — and a futile thing at that. 

There was no trouble in the school after that. In a few v 
days the teacher was stricken with a fever (a contagion that 
had prevailed in the neighborhood for some days, and had 
reduced the school attendance), and was kept in bed at home 
for a month. It was three months before he fully recovered; 
and another teacher had to be engaged to finish the term. 
This was the last of his teaching until nearly six years later, 
when he began to instruct medical students — after his 
graduation from a medical college. 

I never knew whether the plot the good woman told of 
was a very real thing or more of a joke; or whether, if it were 
a serious matter, her husband may not have quietly put his 
firm hand upon it in discouragement of any formidable act. 
The thoughtful kindness of these good Downer people was 
never forgotten; they were of the salt of the earth. I never 
saw any of them after going home, sick; but half a century 
later I traced out and corresponded with the middle-aged man 
whom I had known as one of the Downer children. Then 
I had further justification of the high opinion early formed 
of the family. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 67 

The summer of 1863 was a time of hard work on the farm, 
with preparations for going to school somewhere in the fall. 
A large new school house in Sycamore and its locally famous 
school were attractive. The principal was Mr. A. J. Blan- 
chard, a middle-aged man, tall, austere, deliberate, and very 
dignified and firm. He wore a full, bushy beard, except for 
a shaved upper lip. He had been principal here some years 
before — had gone away to a distant school, and had just been 
called back to his old position. He was being mildly lionized 
in the town. 

Sycamore was then larger than DeKalb — it is now half as 
large — which fact was, to a city-seeking youth, an argument 
in its favor; and there was found a family of good people 
who would board him for the few chores they had for him to 
do. He began school with the opening of the term in the 
new school house, December 21, 1863. He had already 
spent two weeks in the school at Malta in reviewing his 
studies, especially his Latin, under an able teacher. 

The school at Sycamore was superior in many ways, and 
all the pupils seemed agreeable and smart. There were many 
fine-looking young girls in the high school room, as fine, 
without doubt, as those in DeKalb two years before, but 
they failed to make on the youth so profound an impression; 
this, however, was not their fault. 

Principal Blanchard's administration was firm and effec- 
tive. He was loyal and kind to his teachers and to all 
pupils, but never soft or trivial; and both the teachers and 
the school stood in some awe of him. The little teaching he 
did was quiet, but keen and stimulating. He taught some of 
the Latin that I pursued to the extent of thirty-two chapters 
in Caesar. And he gave me a few lessons in Greek, which 
were distinctly valuable in my after-study. 

Our school room was presided over by a fine woman 
assistant, a middle-aged spinster, who was very prim and 
proper. She was always faultlessly and richly dressed, and 
had rather too much of an effect of over-refinement to have 



68 THE MARCHING YEARS 

a particle of comradery with the girls; and she did not escape 
some ridicule at their hands; in this the boys never joined. 
Moreover, the girls often took advantage of her, which the 
principal was prompt to repress whenever he knew of it. It 
is doubtful that she had ever been a real girl — she must have 
been a very proper young lady directly after her early 
childhood. 

One day early in February, when I had gone home to 
attend the funeral of my brother, it seems that our school 
room had been left for a few minutes without a teacher or 
monitor of any sort. The pupils had, constructively if not 
in terms, been put upon their honor to keep quiet and 
orderly, and go on with their study. But soon there began 
a gale of hilarity and fun-making among the girls; one of the 
bolder among them started it, and several others followed in 
a mild rough-house. The boys were evidently startled by 
the suddenness and fury of it all, and they kept still. 

The presumption is that the principal had a door-crack 
look into the room before he entered. When he came in 
there was instant silence, but he had spotted the chief of- 
fenders. There were half a dozen of them, and all from 
prominent families in the town; they were among the older 
pupils, and they were all fine young women. They had 
merely done what all sorts of people do occasionally — in a 
crowd impulse they had followed a daring leader into losing 
their heads and doing collectively what perhaps no one of 
them would have thought of doing alone. 

Later in the day the leaders were called to the floor in a 
squad, and the principal gave each in turn the traditional 
treatment of feruling the palm of the hand — and he was not 
tender about it, either. They took their punishment bravely, 
even stoically. 

When I returned the next day, the school was the most 
quiet, orderly and business-like institution that can be 
imagined; but the air outside seethed with intense gossip 
and a good deal of indignation at what many regarded as a 



THE MARCHING YEARS 69 

great outrage done to the young women. There was talk of 
discipline of the principal by the School Board, and of the 
parents taking the girls out of the school, but neither was 
done. Some of the patrons of the school who were not hit 
by the incident said the girls got only what was coming to 
them, and that the principal was justified. Others declared 
that corporal punishment in school, and especially a high 
school, was a return to the barbarism of earlier ages, and 
should be abolished by law — also that in this case the school 
master was a brute. A few declared that the trustees did 
not dare to discipline the principal, even if they would like 
to. Through it all Blanchard maintained his usual reserve 
and dignity, as though nothing of consequence had happened; 
and the school went on better and more efficiently than 
before. He afterward remained principal of this school 
continuously for over twenty years. The excitement about 
the event died out slowly, but it died, and in a few weeks was 
gone. The air in and out of the school seemed to have been 
cleared by the explosion, which certainly was not due to the 
sort of punishment inflicted, but rather to the force of the 
strong character of the man, and the evident fact that the 
school was more useful after the event. 

I^i One circumstance enabled the girls the easier to bear 
their humiliation : There was a community of suffering ; they 
could comfort and joke each other about it. That misery 
loves company is a very true adage. Had there been only 
one or two girls to be singled out for punishment, it might 
have been felt as a life-long humiliation, but with half a 
dozen in the same calamity there was a fellowship in suffering 
that lessened the individual sting. Nor did any of the girls 
ever complain, so far as the public knew, that their punish- 
ment was undeserved. 

I once saw a large part of a great city literally at the 
mercy of a fire, for there was no water supply for the fire 
department. All one day people moved out of their houses 
ahead of the fire, carrying a few of their belongings, clothes 



70 THE MARCHING YEARS 

and household goods, and marched away, they knew not 
where, except that they were going away from the fire. 
There were no tears, no lamentations; the people all suffered 
and lost together, and they saluted and rallied each other 
about the relative value of the things they had saved. 

At the end of February, long before the close of the school 
year, I had to leave and go home for the farm work. This 
was the end of my school education, except that in medical 
colleges. I had given to high school studies here and at 
DeKalb only about thirty- three weeks, all told — a little less 
than a school year. 

After being at home during the spring work I got the 
consent of my parents to try a career in town, and on May 
23, 1864, began work in the postoffice at Sycamore as the 
sole clerk to the postmaster. I served there until the fall. 
The postmaster was Chauncey Ellwood. He and I did all 
the postal work, besides selling stationery and candy. I 
slept at the office and ate at the Ellwood house. The hours 
were long, and the office was dingy, impossible to be even 
fairly ventilated, and my health was poor, with some diges- 
tive troubles all summer. The salary was twelve dollars a 
month, with board and washing. Ellwood maintained that 
the educational value of the experience was nearly pay 
enough. And the experience was valuable, no doubt — any- 
way, I tried to think so. For a little while my fancy ran 
toward the law as a vocation, and I borrowed a copy of 
Blackstone and tried to read it. But after my day's work 
was over I was always tired and debilitated, and did not read 
half a dozen chapters. 

Once in the summer I felt so tired and dragged out that it 
was necessary to go home for three days to rest. The post- 
master was willing, and hired a substitute for the three days, 
whose pay he afterward deducted from my own, and it 
absorbed two-thirds of my month's salary. The wonder is 
that I was not seized with tuberculosis then, rather than two 
decades and a half later. Perhaps I had it then; who can tell? 



THE MARCHING YEARS 71 

While working there I had a few intellectual diversions; 
one was attending two, and sometimes three different churches 
each Sunday; another was helping in a school play at the end 
of the term in June. I delivered the speech of Marc Antony 
over the body of Caesar — doing it in an absurdly grandilo- 
quent style, to make it as ridiculous as possible; in this last 
particular it was a success. The most valuable intellectual 
advantage of that year was hearing an address by President 
Richard Edwards, and a paper by Professor Metcalf, of the 
State Normal School, at a Teachers' Institute in October. 
The paper by Metcalf was so scholarly and superior, and was 
put in such simple and faultless English, that it stands out 
as one of the inspiring and formative influences for whatever 
scholarship has ever come to me. I do not remember the 
title of his paper, or a thing he actually said — his paper 
dealt with study and scholarship — but there is no question 
of the general effect on my mind; and that was of a scholar 
who stated his thesis in refined language; stated it logically, 
with great felicity in the use of words, without a shadow of 
extravagance, and with each syllable pronounced with accu- 
rate distinctness. It was a spoken symphony, never to be 
forgotten ! 

Another influence of the same sort that came to me 
during that period of my life and later, was the personality 
of a cousin of my father's by marriage, Mrs. Abba Willard. 
She made us brief visits at long intervals, and I once spent 
a day at her home in Boston. I have preserved her occasional 
letters and their sometimes enclosed clippings of her fugitive 
poems and prose writings, and a few copies of these in her 
own delicate chirography. They all bore evidence of such 
refinement, scholarship and a delicate sense of humor, as to 
be a positive help to my slowly growing taste for the more 
genuine things of life and literature. And her quiet, un- 
paraded personality was an influence in the same direction, 
for which I have always been thankful. 



72 THE MARCHING YEARS 

I left the postoffice November 12, 1864, and went to 
Morris, Illinois, to be a traveling agent for Grundy county of 
a fire insurance company, insuring mainly farm buildings. 
My father was reluctant to have me take up any kind of 
business but farming, and so, I suspect, had little faith in me 
as an insurance agent. But he fitted me out with an old 
open buggy and a horse — one of the original cream colored 
pair — a horse now approaching superannuation. My mother 
gave me for a lap-robe a reddish checkered woolen blanket 
that she had woven in her youth out of yarn she had spun 
and dyed. With my few belongings in a couple of old 
satchels, I fared forth across the country, stopping for meals 
and lodgings at farm houses on the way. These families 
were almost uniformly kind to me on this journey, as on 
all the later ones made in the many months that followed in 
pursuit of business, albeit they sometimes embarrassed me 
by refusing to accept any pay for their favors. 

I soon found a boarding place at Morris, in a family of 
good people, ardent Methodists, where I stopped the two 
days or more each week when not traveling through the 
country. After some weeks this family moved out of town, 
and I got another boarding place, this time in the family of 
a physician by the name of Harper. Here, with some of his 
books I commenced in my spare time the study of medicine. 
Here, also, I met a fellow-boarder, Mr. Ormond Stone, a 
young bank clerk, son of a Methodist clergyman. He was a 
bright, clean fellow, ambitious and rather aggressively 
opinionated. When he learned that my parents were Uni- 
versalists, and that I must be infected with that heresy, he 
set about correcting my perilous tendencies. We had many 
discussions on religious and other subjects, and became warm 
friends. 

Afterward Stone was a student in astronomy under Pro- 
fessor Safford at the first University of Chicago; then he 
became an assistant in the JJ. S. Naval Observatory in 
Washington. Later he was the Astronomer of the University 



THE MARCHING YEARS 73 

of Cincinnati, and later still at the University of Virginia, 
where he served many years, and finally retired to a farm 
in Virginia on a Carnegie pension. In June, 1866, in Chicago, 
he introduced me to his parents — who were living there and 
who entertained me, and who then and afterward were 
thoughtfully kind to me — and to his younger brother, Mel- 
ville E., who has since become world famous in the newspaper 
field, and whose friendship I have had and prized through all 
the accumulating years. He founded the Chicago Daily 
News, which became a great success; afterward was a banker, 
and later the General Manager of the "Associated Press," 
which grew under his hand to be a great globe-encircling 
system for the gathering of news and the distribution of it, 
uncolored and unprejudiced, to its hundreds of member 
newspapers all over the country. 

The Harper family were Methodists, and I often attended 
church with them and Stone. Mrs. H. had serious concern 
about the salvation of my soul, and urged me to attend 
revival meetings with her. One evening I accepted and 
went, telling her that I had a business appointment at 9 
o'clock, and must then leave the church. She forgot about 
this statement, so when I left her pew, she believed it was 
because of an accusing sense of conviction of sin. This 
thought she harbored for more than a year, when she told 
me of it. 

In Sycamore I had attended the Universalist Church 
rather regularly. My parents had attended that church 
whenever they could, from my earliest memory. Always 
since childhood I have been interested in religious books 
and observancies ; and have profited by attending churches 
of many denominations and religions, later including the 
Catholic and Jewish. This must be in part due to my 
never having been in childhood forced into religious observ- 
ances of any kind. A few times when little, I did go with 
my parents to the occasional country church service, but was 
infinitely bored by sitting and wiggling in irksome silence 



74 THE MARCHING YEARS 

through a service, none of which could be understood or 
enjoyed, except the singing, which pleased me, and made me 
wish the whole service could be musical. The music also 
gave me the joy of rising and stretching my fidgety legs. My 
parents never required this discipline of me afterward. 
That was not only the merciful course, but it was the wisest 
one. 

What a host of men grew up in the last century in 
this country to hate and ridicule church-going and religion, 
being unavoidably set against them by the punishment they 
suffered in childhood by being compelled to endure rigid 
and solemn Sunday programs, usually long drawn out! If 
those old religionists had deliberately planned to discredit 
their own faith and harm the religious life of their children, 
they could not have done it more effectively than by the 
course they took with them. 

While working in Morris, came my first and only horse 
swapping experience. My horse was very gentle, but getting 
old. A farmer had a younger horse he was willing to trade, 
but it had some slight fault of behavior that I believed could 
be easily managed. He told me frankly and rather circum- 
stantially of this fault, but he failed to say that the beast 
was a fearful halter-puller. He was willing to swap even. 
We swapped, and I drove the new acquisition home without 
difficulty. That night or some night soon afterward (May, 
1865) the horse — hitched by a neck halter — hanged himself 
dead, around the inclined edge of a partition between stalls. 
Then I remembered that my father had often told me never 
to hitch a horse long, but always short — in a stable or else- 
where. 

What a foolish persistent horse! When he pulled his 
neck around the edge of that partition and began to feel 
the choking sensation due to pressure on his windpipe, 
instead of relaxing his pull and getting his breath (like a 
sensible horse), he pulled the harder, and as he began to 
slide down from exhaustion the incline of the edge of the 



THE MARCHING YEARS 75 

partition increased the pressure, and soon stopped his breath 
altogether. Some men are just that way, and quite as 
foolish under thwarting difficulties. Persistency is good for 
any man in a good cause; but persistency that cuts off the 
wind of the man himself — well, some men show their kinship 
to some horses! 



CHAPTER VII. 

EDUCATION. 

THERE were several reasons why I did not go to college. 
One must have been the lack of a college atmosphere 
strong enough to overcome all obstacles. Among all 
my boy fellows, in the schools I attended and out of them, 
hardly one is recalled who went to college or was going. 
And after my professional studies were begun, so low were 
the requirements for admission to a medical school that there 
was scarcely a classmate who had even attended a college 
or the academic department of a university. 

Boys go to college because, among other reasons, it is the 
fashion in their family groups. Their fathers or their grand- 
fathers have been so educated, or their uncles; or some or 
many of their acquaintances have been, or are going. They 
are in the atmosphere of college thought and habit; to fail of 
some sort of a college education may even be thought to 
disgrace the family. In some cases this atmosphere is created 
by the fact that a college training seems indispensable or 
invaluable to the selected life work, and that makes the 
atmosphere. Again, ambitious parents create it for their 
children. They wish them to have a college education be- 
cause it is a highly creditable thing in itself, and because 
it gives them — and quite properly — a better standing in the 
community. Other things being equal, it gives them the 
inside track in the race of business and social life. But 
often other things are not equal, and so the college fellows 
sometimes fall down in business pursuits. 

My own family history was peculiar in the fact that 
among all my relatives, of my own age and older — except 
an invalid second cousin, after whom I was named, who 
wished to attend a college and was never able to — not one 
ever thought of going to college. They did not live and work 

[76] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 77 

in an environment that made it seem necessary that they 
should have a college education, or that their sons should. 
My father could not see the necessity, nor could he afford 
the expense. My mother had no particular thought about 
it, further than the desire that her sons should have any 
sort or amount of education they wished for, or could take; 
and that they should always acquit themselves creditably, 
both in and out of school. 

After my limited experience in high school study, I did 
have a desire to go to college. But poor health, lack of 
robust vigor, frequent attacks of migraine, the state of the 
family treasury, and a feeling that it was necessary to make 
my education point toward an early earning power — all 
these worked against it. So, after a brief toying with Black- 
stone in 1864, the study of medicine was chosen as the most 
promising and, withal, most agreeable trail to take. 

From youth up, my vigor was below that of my brother 
and of other fellows near my own age. They had larger 
masses of muscle than I, and could outdo me in every sport 
that required firm muscles and long endurance. I could not 
even sit still in one position long without fatigue ; my muscles 
required frequent change of position — frequent shifting of the 
load. My digestive organs got out of order easily, and this 
was a positive and continuous handicap. After a protracted 
fever at eighteen my health was more precarious than ever, 
and on this account the study of medicine seemed almost a 
duty. I wished to know more about human physiology and 
pathology, and the only way to do this effectively was to take 
up the study in earnest. The study of medicine in that day 
was superficial enough, but it gave something substantial, 
and it could and did lead to more thorough study and wider 
knowledge later on. 

My college ambition must have been rather theoretic, for 
my Latin, studied at school, was always disliked, and to look 
forward to four years of the classics, which seemed of little 
direct use, was not alluring. The enterprise looked like a 



78 THE MARCHING YEARS 

large price to pay for a college degree. That is not to say it 
was a large price; it looked that way to the rustic mind. It is 
true, there were then some scientific college courses with very 
little or none of the classics, but in academic circles they 
were almost as unpopular as the complete absence of college 
training. The few students who took such courses were 
regarded as lowering the standard of college education, and 
were frowned upon and generally refused full recognition and 
fellowship by the other students. 

After I had taught some years in medical colleges, the 
Latin that I had early learned, and tried to forget, began to 
come back to me, and to become a living thing in its vital 
relation to other languages and to the terminology of science. 
So did also the little touch of Greek that came at the end of 
my time in the High School at Sycamore. 

To those who lament the lack of a college education, as 
most studious non-college men do, there are some compensa- 
tions. They usually regard themselves as uneducated men, 
and so all the rest of their lives they study to make up for 
their defects, or because they love to study. And they are 
likely to accumulate quite a body of useful learning. They 
enjoy the contact with men more learned than themselves; 
and, since they have no airs of early advantage, they are 
more avid to learn from others; and every new branch of 
world study which they take up, whether in connection with 
their business, from other needs, or from mere love of learn- 
ing, they enjoy the more because it is taken for its own sake, 
as well as a duty. 

I know that many men — some of them learned — who have 
wished for a college education and failed to get it, feel de- 
frauded, as they are, of many precious associations that 
college men have all through life. They sometimes feer this 
acutely from a possible air of superiority on the part of the 
elect toward them. But it is usually their own sensitiveness 
that makes them imagine an air of condescension where it 
does not exist. College men are mostly good fellows — not 



THE MARCHING YEARS 79 

cads; and they generally measure other men for what they 
are and are capable of, regardless of the particular road they 
have traveled in their development. And a non-college man 
with real attainments and worth will be merely amused at 
any caddishness on the part of the occasional college man who 
is greatly impressed with his own brand and breed. The 
achievements of men with no academic and little school 
education, the records they have made by the things they 
have accomplished, may well make us fairly satisfied with 
Time's great yard-stick that measures men for what they 
are, what they know, and what they can do. 

Early in 1865 in Morris, Illinois, I began the study of 
medicine, reading mornings and evenings in borrowed books. 
The doctors that I knew best were not learned or scientific, 
and there was from them little encouragement to go into the 
study with thoroughness. One friendly practitioner told me 
confidentially that in order to succeed it was only necessary 
for a doctor to know enough to be able to appear creditably 
in a consultation with other physicians. But it was my 
fortune about that time to meet a scholarly fellow by the 
name of Allen, who had been a year at the medical school of 
the University of Michigan, and who gave me a good account 
of the work done there — also telling me that the fees were 
very small. This kindled in me an ambition to go to Michi- 
gan. I went home for the harvesting, and was back in 
Morris in the fall, and doing mostly office work for a Mr. 
McBride, who was an agent for several insurance companies, 
besides being a justice of the peace. This work was more 
agreeable than my previous insurance business, and gave me 
more time to study. The office was re-arranged so that a 
room and desk were at my service, and there came to me 
visions of a possible career as a business man in this line. 
I was often sent off to distant towns on the business of the 
office, and was usually successful on these missions; but no 
temptation of this or any sort was able now to divert me 
from a professional career. 



80 THE MARCHING YEARS 

Near the end of June, 1866, I left Morris for good, and 
went home for the harvest. My job was to rake off the 
grain, for bundles, from an old-time reaper, and afterward to 
stack it all, which latter task I now know was done very 
poorly. In my spare time I read Dalton's book on physiology. 

Late in September I went to Ann Arbor, paying eight 
dollars to the State of Michigan and entering the medical 
class. The course ran from October first to about the middle 
of March. Money was scarce, rigid economy was imperative, 
and I joined a small club of students with the arrangement 
that our landlady would cook for us whatever provisions we 
bought. The fare was poor, largely of corn meal; the work 
of the sessions was confining — several didactic lectures each 
day, and more or less work, first and last, in the chemical 
laboratory and the anatomy room; also a quiz class among 
the students several evenings a week. This last I always 
attended, but usually under physical conditions of great 
drowsiness and with the acquisition or fixation of very little 
learning. 

During the winter I was several times depressed by minor 
ills, and once was in bed a week with an ulcerated toe, due 
to chilblain and lowered vitality. There was resulting 
lymphatic inflammation in the leg and groin. Like most 
foolish youths of that day, I had worn boots that were too 
tight for me, and over them in cold days close fitting rubbers, 
which added to the trouble. 

With all the discomforts and handicaps, the season was 
profitable in the knowledge acquired, and in some ideals 
gained through contact with a faculty of superior men. 
These men were Drs. Ford, Palmer, Douglas, Sager, Armour, 
Gunn, Prescott, Cheever and Rose. They had a high order 
of attainments, and were good teachers where teaching had 
to be done mostly by lectures to large classes. The class 
was too large or the time too short to permit the teacher to 
do any quizzing, thus depriving us of one of the most useful 
forms of teaching. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 81 

The students were much amused at some of the idiosyn- 
crasies of the professors. Dr. Gunn, the professor of surgery, 
was an imposing man; tall, erect, with a reddish beard, which 
he wore a la Burnside, and which was becoming tinged with 
gray. His graying hair was very long, and hung in large 
depending ringlets, made each morning around the moist 
fingers of his adoring wife. This gave him a fantastic ap- 
pearance and a reputation for foppishness that he hardly 
deserved. He was a rapid and elegant operator, and had to 
his credit at least one striking addition to the art: He dem- 
onstrated a new rule in dislocation of joints, which was to 
put the parts in the exact position they occupied at the 
moment of the injury, when the dislocated part easily slides 
back into position. The next year he went to Rush College 
as Professor of Surgery, following Dr. Daniel Brainard, who 
had died of cholera. Eight years after this time I became a 
junior colleague of his, and had his friendship and comrade- 
ship up to the time of his death in the late eighties. 

Dr. Palmer, the professor of medicine, was a fine teacher, 
but somewhat given to fads. One of these was an abounding 
faith in the efficacy of chlorate of potash, which he recom- 
mended for all sorts of symptoms and in liberal doses — all 
because it contains a large proportion of oxygen. The drug 
long ago fell into desuetude, since it was found to be useless 
as a remedy, and a poison to the kidneys when taken in large 
doses. 

Dr. Ford was lame, and walked with a cane. He was a 
strikingly handsome man, used the most refined language, 
and was a great teacher. He taught anatomy, and amused 
us by a few set expressions; for instance, when he was de- 
scribing an anatomical groove or foramen, he would put a 
probe in it and say "probe in it." Some irreverent members 
of the class called him "Old probe in it," but it was a sobri- 
quet of affection, for everyone loved him. His ideals for the 
profession were a small fortune to any student who had the 
sense to imbibe them. 



82 THE MARCHING YEARS 

Dr. Armour, who taught the Institute of Medicine (other- 
wise the principles of medicine), invariably read his lectures, 
which therefore might have been expected to seem dull; yet 
he was a true orator without knowing it, and the enthusiasm 
for him on the part of the students was boundless. When, 
before the end of the term, he left to deliver lectures at Long 
Island College Hospital, the students formed a procession and 
escorted him to the train. 

The medical class numbered 300 strong, and averaged 
rather high in forcefulness and character. Yet very few of 
them had ever been to a college, and fewer had graduated 
from one. Some of the college graduates were heard to 
express regret that in college they were taught so much of 
the classics, and so little science that would have been 
helpful in the study of medicine. 

The winter had for us many advantages outside the cur- 
riculum. We heard nearly every Sunday afternoon a lecture 
by the President of the University, Rev. E. O. Haven, 
afterward a bishop in the Methodist Church. These dis- 
courses were a labor of love on his part, and they were most 
inspiring and valuable. They were delivered in the largest 
hall on the campus, the great law lecture room, which was 
crowded with students and townspeople. Frequently the 
lecture was in response to a request, and I recall one such 
especially, which was in answer to the question, "Is there a 
God?" It was a most satisfying discussion of the subject, 
and made a profound impression. 

The Rev. Mr. Brigham, of the Unitarian Church, had a 
Bible class that I attended with much profit. He occasion- 
ally read to us one of his own scholarly essays, of which he had 
a large bundle, on subjects of great interest to students and 
scholars. Several distinguished men came to Ann Arbor to 
lecture in a lyceum course that winter, all of whom we heard. 
They were Gough, Greeley, Schurz, Theodore Tilton, Wendell 
Phillips, Fred Douglass, Bayard Taylor and Rev. Robert 
Collyer. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 83 

By the end of March I was in Chicago attending the 
summer term in the Chicago Medical College, afterward the 
Medical Department of the Northwestern University. This 
was a pleasant relief from the tedium of listening to lectures 
at Michigan, for there was a small class, and a relatively 
large amount of clinical teaching. 

I joined some other impecunious students, who took 
rooms near the college and boarded themselves.* One of 
the number was Charles B. Johnson, who has since made an 
honorable career in the profession, and has published two 
creditable books, one on his Civil War experiences as a soldier. 
He was a good fellow, besides being a good cook and a fair 
dish washer. This club arrangement lasted only a month, 
when I became the personal student of Edmund Andrews, 
professor of surgery, and moved into his office at the northeast 
corner of Monroe and Dearborn Streets, opposite the post- 
office of that day. Dr. J. S. Sherman, a brilliant young 
surgeon, was an office associate of Andrews; and on the same 
floor were Drs. E. L. Holmes, of the Rush faculty, Thomas 
Bevan and John M. Wood worth, all of blessed memory. 

I spent many charmed hours with Dr. Bevan. He 
revealed to me such practical wisdom as I could never have 
found and recognized in books. He was a man of fine 
erudition — he had studied medicine in Paris. He was a 
helpful human philosopher, and immensely stimulating to 
any young fellow like myself, lately from the farm, with 
little education and with a world of things to learn about 
city life and the ways of a profession that touches humanity 
so intimately. He died while still a young man, and left his 
son Arthur, to carry on and increase the family fame in 
medicine, as a professor, first of anatomy and later of surg- 
ery in Rush College. 

Woodworth, although young, had been a surgeon in our 
army during the Civil War, on the staff of General Logan, 



*The college was then in a two-story brick business building on State Street, 
the second building south of Twenty-second Street, facing west. 



84 THE MARCHING YEARS 

who became greatly attached to him. Later, on Logan's 
recommendation, he became the first Surgeon-General of the 
U. S. Marine Hospital Service, after its reorganization. 
He remained Surgeon-General until his death, many years 
later. I once asked him the basis of Logan's attachment 
to him. Then he told me a story of their army service. It 
was the habit of the General to rise early in the morning 
and ride rapidly for inspection over every part of the camp 
of his division. The temptation to young staff officers was 
to sleep as late as possible, while the rule was that his staff 
should ride with their commander in the morning — and 
Woodworth was never late. He was punctual in everything. 
He was a gentleman of great refinement, fastidious in deport- 
ment and dress — he wore with a military air, a large and 
elegant army cape instead of an overcoat, and a soft hat. 
He had a genius for organization which made his selection 
for the public service a fortunate one. He was the embodi- 
ment of true friendship, which he showed by unobtrusive 
acts to those he liked. 

He was the Demonstrator of Anatomy in the College, 
and soon after my graduation he invited me to become the 
Assistant Demonstrator and do most of the practical teaching 
for a year, after which he would resign, hoping the trustees 
would elect me to his place. Of course the proffer was 
promptly accepted, and the first part of the scheme was 
carried out, somewhat crudely, but as well as possible to me. 
How, after his resignation, the second part of the plan failed, 
is described elsewhere. 

Dr. Holmes was a rare and genuine soul. He had studied 
eye surgery under the great von Graefe in Europe. He had 
now a large and exacting practice, but found time to bestow 
on me a fatherly friendship. Then began an attachment 
that was to last until his death (as President of Rush College) 
quite thirty years later. Then I had been his colleague in 
the faculty for more than twenty years. His was a friend- 
ship that was true and abiding; he was the only man who 



THE MARCHING YEARS 85 

put tears into his goodby, as (early in 1891) he relieved me 
indefinitely from college duty and sent me off to California, 
as he thought, to die. 

I spent ten weeks of my summer vacation (1867) at home 
for the harvest; made a short visit to Morris in the last days 
of September, and was back in the office of my friend at 
the opening of the college term, the first of October. I 
never went back to Malta to live after that. Before many 
months my father sold the farm, and I did not see it again 
for over a third of a century; by that time its buildings were 
extremely dilapidated — although its fields were more fertile 
than ever — and I did not care to see it again. 

The course at the college was pleasant and uneventful, 
and I went through it in better health and courage. I 
assisted Andrews and Sherman in much of their surgery — 
and tried to collect their bills, often succeeding, although 
it was a disagreeable task. When in later years it became 
necessary to get money thus out of my own bills, it was 
quite as irksome. 

In November, at the suggestion of Dr. Andrews, I agreed 
to try, in time borrowed from my study, to reproduce in 
plaster the missing bones (about one-third in number) of 
two mastodon skeletons that had been found buried deep in 
the earth near Fort Wayne, Indiana, and been given to the 
young and struggling Chicago Academy of Sciences. The 
Academy was then erecting a fireproof museum building to 
house its collection, at the rear of St. Paul's Universalist 
Church, on the northwest corner of Wabash Avenue and 
Van Buren Street. Dr. Andrews took great interest in the 
Academy, and all its friends were anxious to have the skeletons 
mounted when the new building should be finished, the 
following summer. The occasion was to be made notable 
by the meeting in Chicago at that time, of the "American 
Association for the Advancement of Science." The Academy 
had a temporary laboratory, on the top floor of the building 



86 THE MARCHING YEARS 

on the northwest corner of Randolph and La Salle Streets.* 
There I got together modeling clay, plaster of Paris and 
various tools, and went to work. Leonard W. Volk, the 
eminent sculptor, gave me some suggestions, and Dr. Andrews 
was my constant counselor. I worked at it faithfully at 
convenient times, afternoons and evenings mostly. From 
my diary, it appears that I must have spent an aggregate of 
about two hundred hours on the task. When the skeletons 
were set up, and the plaster painted the dark brownish color 
of the earth-stained bones, the casual visitor to the museum 
failed to distinguish the real bones from the counterfeits. 

At the end of the season I was elected a member of the 
Academy, and later became its recorder (or recording secre- 
tary), continuing in that capacity for many years. Dr. Wm. 
Stimson was then the curator and scientific head of the 
institution, and a fine man for the place. The chief financial 
angel of the Academy was Mr. George C. Walker, a staunch 
friend of mine and a good citizen who, years afterward, 
presented to the University of Chicago the "Walker Museum" 
building, f Mr. E. W. Blatchford was a friend of the Acad- 
emy, and gave it much material support. Both these men 
were on its Board of Trustees. 

The great fire of 1871 destroyed this "fireproof" building 
of ours and all its contents. I searched the ruins afterward, 
and found a fragment of the cancellated structure of one of 
the large mastodon bones. That was all there was left of 
my skeletons and my labor. It was a melancholy loss, but 
the labor had paid for itself by the doing. 

The faculty of the Chicago Medical College contained 
some notable men, pioneers in a new plan in the teaching of 
medicine. That plan was the beginning of the better peda- 
gogic methods of later years in this country. The leaders 
of the faculty had a few years before seceded from the Rush 

♦There was a great audience hall in this building, called Metropolitan Hall. Here 
it was, as I recall, where I heard Charles Sumner deliver his lecture entitled, "Are We 
a Nation?" 

tMr. Julius Rosenwald has in later years made a noble addition to this building. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 87 

faculty, and founded the new college because Rush refused 
to adopt their new idea. This idea was that instead of having 
two required courses of lectures, which should be repetitions 
of each other, as they had always been, the students should 
be graded, the elementary branches of anatomy, physiology, 
chemistry, etc., being taught in the first year, and the practical 
ones of surgery, practice of medicine, etc., in the second; 
so "the graded course of instruction" became the slogan of 
the new college. It was logical and good, as far as it went, 
but wholly inadequate because it added nothing to the things 
taught. Moreover, it was later something of a handicap, 
for the new plan seemed to some collegians to be the acme of 
things to be attained, instead of a very small first step toward 
the great educational development that was needed and 
bound to come — and that has come. 

On March 4, 1868, I received my diploma of graduation 
as Doctor of Medicine. Ten years later Rush College gave 
me the degree of M.D. ad eundem. 

In that faculty of the Chicago College there were, for 
their day and generation, several strong men. Davis, 
Andrews, Johnson, Jewell, Hollister, Isham and Patterson 
are especially remembered. Isham was one of the most 
satisfying lecturers on surgery that I heard in those days; 
Andrews was a great philosopher and world student; Johnson 
was an eloquent lecturer, a good practitioner and refined 
gentleman. Jewell was a tireless worker; he tried to make us 
all work as hard as he did — he scorned vacations, and he 
died of consumption not many years afterward. Patterson 
taught mental diseases and legal medicine — and it would be 
hard to imagine a better didactic teacher. Hollister was a 
fine teacher and man, and was the friend of us all. 

Dr. Nathan S. Davis, the president of the College and 
its chief professor of medicine, was the dominating personality 
of the faculty. He was a great spirit, a great organizer, 
philosopher, practitioner and orator. He took life in deep 
seriousness; he rarely smiled, more rarely laughed aloud. He 



88 THE MARCHING YEARS 

was serious in his lecturing, and very serious with his patients, 
of whom he had a great number; but he was always genial 
and helpful to other doctors, especially the younger ones, as 
I afterward had many occasions to know. 

Early in his professional life he founded the American 
Medical Association, that has become a great benefit to the 
profession and the public. He induced the Association in the 
early eighties to found and maintain a weekly journal — 
Journal of the American Medical Association — and he was 
its first editor. The first issue was dated July 14, 1883. It 
immediately gave dignity to the Association; in successive 
hands it has grown to a large size and has attained an enor- 
mous circulation; and its usefulness has grown faster than 
its age and its circulation. 

Dr. Davis was largely responsible for the early adoption 
by the Association of a "Code of Medical Ethics." This is 
one of the highest expressions of human ethics, of the prin- 
ciples of correct conduct, ever stated in words. Although 
this instrument was supplemented later by a shorter one 
called the "Principles of Medical Ethics," it could not super- 
sede the original, which is matchless. At a still later time 
a very necessary new rule or principle was added, which 
absolves the physician from his usually inviolable respect 
for the confidences of his patient, when the latter is about to 
marry an innocent person, to whom he is nearly certain to 
transmit an infectious disease. Then the physician is 
justified in taking steps to prevent the marriage. 

The reasoning of Dr. Davis about the sick, about human 
life and conduct, was masterful — and he was a lifelong, 
implacable enemy of alcohol in every form and for any pur- 
pose. His fault as a teacher was in placing too much reliance 
on drugs and too little on the influence of good regimen and 
hygiene and the curing power of the normal forces of the 
body. His teaching was extremely valuable in most ways, 
but too many of his students got the habit of prescribing 
drugs and rarely giving directions for management. Many 



THE MARCHING YEARS 89 

of them — myself among others — spent years in evolving out 
of that bad habit. 

Perhaps later my pendulum in prescribing and teaching 
swung to the opposite extreme, for after lecturing one day 
against the prevalent habit of over-drugging the sick, one 
of the smart students sent down to me a note saying, "Do 
you really believe in the value of any drug?" My faith in a 
few drugs was never lost, but I was trying to think, and 
trying to lead students to think, what would probably happen 
to a patient (under initial study) if nothing was done for him 
but to protect him with good hygiene, good care and rest. 
The unavoidable conclusion was that in more than ninety- 
five per cent of cases recovery would happen. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AN INDISPENSABLE STUDY. 

THE fact that medical students must, when under proper 
instruction, dissect the human body, is usually hazy in 
the casual lay mind ; is often spoken of under the breath ; 
and is doubted by many persons of superficial minds who are 
wont to take the world about them for granted. That a 
person competent to treat and operate on the sick human 
body must have had practical study of anatomy, never 
occurs to half the people; hence it is not strange that many 
good souls should think it horrid or sacrilegious, and that the 
procurement of bodies for dissection seems an outrage on 
human rights and the sanctity of the dead. 

Not only is it indispensable that every practitioner shall 
have had this study, in order to be competent, but for this 
purpose bodies have, until recent time, usually had to be 
procured in illegal or unlegal ways. 

As from my graduation in medicine it fell to my lot to 
teach anatomy for two years, and sometimes, then and later, 
to be concerned in the procurement of material for study, a 
record is here made of some of these experiences. 

In the spring of 1868 Dr. Charles T. Parkes was graduated 
from Rush as I was from the Chicago College. He was soon 
appointed Demonstrator of Anatomy in his Alma Mater, 
and I was made Assistant Demonstrator in mine. Dr. John 
M. Wood worth was the Demonstrator of record, and my 
chief. He was one of the finest gentlemen I was ever asso- 
ciated with; but he was fastidious, and hated the program of 
daily teaching in a practical-anatomy room ; it was too untidy 
and malodorous — besides, he was diffident with students. 

Parkes was a man of great force and a fine anatomist. 
He afterward became a superior surgeon; and died Professor 

[90] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 91 

of Surgery in his Alma Mater.* He was my colleague and 
friend during the last fifteen years of his life. He began his 
work as Demonstrator with enthusiasm, and prepared for the 
next college session. One of his most important and delicate 
duties was to supply material for dissection. Up to that 
time, and for years afterward, substantially all cadavers for 
American medical schools were procured in some illicit way. 
In many of the states it was a crime to procure bodies, and it 
was an offense against the law to practice without a knowledge 
of anatomy that dissection alone can give. In our state 
they could be had only from the Potter's Field or, with daring 
recklessness, from other cemeteries — or finally by some 
secret pecuniary arrangement with public officials for the 
unclaimed bodies from almshouses and prisons. 

In the summer of 1868 Parkes and Woodworth agreed 
that the former should procure all the material for both 
colleges, and assign it to them according to their respective 
numbers of students. Parkes made a secret arrangement 
with the county undertaker ; and we were to share all expenses 
in proportion to material used. 

For a time after the college term began all seemed to go 
well, but later there was complaint among our students of 
shortage of material. Some of them visited friends in the 
rooms of the other college, and reported that they had found 
there an abundance of good subjects, while ours were few 
and poor for study. Woodworth made gentle complaint to 
Parkes, was told that we were getting a square deal, and that 
we would have to be patient. But matters grew worse 
rather than better, and it finally became evident that we 
must act for ourselves or lose our reputation. It was a 
disagreeable business to tackle; and as my chief had, to my 
benefit and pleasure, given me all the demonstrating to do, 
he invited me to assume this task also. He gave me a free 
hand and no instructions — and did not care to know my 
plans. He told me in detail of the secret trade Parkes had 

*In the spring of 1891. 



92 THE MARCHING YEARS 

with the county undertaker, through whom all the material 
was being secured. This was the way of it: The bodies 
were put in boxes and assembled in a large vault in an old and 
mostly vacated cemetery, that had been added to the south 
end of Lincoln Park. (The vault was nearly the last evidence 
of the cemetery to disappear.) When a wagon load of boxes 
had accumulated, the undertaker notified the county inspec- 
tor to go, late at night, and inspect them, and give him a 
permit to take them to Jefferson* at daylight the next 
morning and bury them in the paupers' cemetery. The 
inspector was an official appointed by the County Board to 
watch the undertaker and prevent any irregular schemes 
for his own profit. The Board was jealous of its own and 
the undertaker's public virtue. Between the visit of the 
inspector and daylight there was time for various manipula- 
tions. A bag of sand was usually the only thing buried in 
each box — if even the box was buried. 

The undertaker was a man of caution as well as acumen, 
and in order to avoid any possible hitch in the arrangements 
he always himself made a preliminary inspection before calling 
the public inspector. Once when he made such an inspec- 
tion he found to his amazement that one of the boxes was 
empty. If the inspector discovered this the undertaker 
would probably lose his job, and with it his irregular profits. 
In fear and anger he hurried to Parkes with the fact of the 
empty box, and accused him of having allowed his man, in 
violation of the compact, to steal its contents. Parkes of 
course denied it, but the man was both unyielding and furious; 
he said there were only two keys to the vault, of which 
Parkes had one and he himself the other, and that he knew 
well that his key had not been near the vault, and therefore 
the other key must have been used — and more talk and much 
threatening. Parkes saw that it was useless to protest, and 
told him that it should be made right. The only way to do 



♦Jefferson was some miles northwest of the city; later to be incorporated into 
the city. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 93 

this was to send men to the Potter's Field in Jefferson, dig 
up a cadaver through four feet of frozen earth, and bring it 
back and put it into the empty box before the inspection — 
all of which was promptly done. 

Whether the undertaker was ever convinced that Parkes 
had told him the truth about the affair was never learned. 
But it was his own precious key that opened the vault for the 
theft. A young bearded anatomist who looked ministerially 
honest had visited the undertaker's place one evening after 
the proprietor had gone home, and had talked in an extremely 
friendly way with the Scandinavian helper who had been 
left in charge. Under a promise to return it early the next 
morning and to remember the man for his kindness, the key 
was borrowed. The man said, "Aif you don't get that key 
back here by seven o'clock tomorror mornin' I'll lose my yob." 
The key was there on time by the hand that had borrowed it, 
and the man received two dollars with a smile of satisfaction 
that showed he had probably not expected more. 

The anatomist had, the evening before, reconnoitered 
Lincoln Park, and he now sent a trusted man with the key, 
and instructions to get everything he found in the vault, 
and take it to a barn in the rear of a drug store on West Lake 
Street. * 

The man found only one specimen in the vault that was 
fit for study, and he brought that away, covered with a gunny 
sack and folded in a barrel. After making his promise good 
to his Scandinavian friend, the anatomist rode with an ex- 
pressman and the barrel to the college, four miles away. 
The express wagon was a rickety affair, and he rode with 
constant fear that the thing would break down. To add to 
this peril the cover on the barrel — an inverted, lidless box, 
held with poorly nailed cleats — was shaken loose, and he had 
to hold it in its place manually during the rest of the journey. 



*This was the store of Dr. J. S. Hunt, a friend whose former home had been Syca- 
more. I knew his father and brother there. 



94 THE MARCHING YEARS 

And the curiosity of the driver as to the contents of the barrel 
had to be appeased. 

Dr. Parkes promptly charged Woodworth with what he 
called a despicable trick, and the latter disavowed any part 
in the affair — in which he was literally if not constructively 
justified. Afterward, on my casually meeting Parkes, he 
charged me with the conspiracy — in a profusion of colorful 
verbal expletives. The only response made to him was to 
the effect that I refused to discuss this or any other bygones, 
but that if we got a square deal thereafter there would 
probably be no more trouble. And we had a square deal 
from that time on. 

One quandary was never answered — why the undertaker's 
man took the risk of secretly loaning the key (the importance 
of which he must have known) to an utter stranger, on no 
promise of any definite reward. The fact of the awful and 
unintended practical joke, in connection with the frozen 
earth, leaked out through a student who was in the office of 
Dr. Parkes; and for prudential reasons I never afterward 
referred to it in the presence of the latter. 

Years afterward, when I was on the teaching staff of 
Rush, a law was passed by the legislature permitting alms- 
houses, prisons and hospitals to turn over their unclaimed 
dead to medical colleges within the State. This of course 
meant some official graft, which the colleges knew they had to 
stand, with or without the law. When the law was passed 
we thought all our troubles about anatomical material were 
over. And they were, until some members of the County 
Board fell out with the undertaker because, as was hinted, 
they failed to get their share of the rake-off. They forbade 
any further deliveries of subjects to anybody under any 
circumstances. Then the colleges were confronted with a 
most desperate situation; they were substantially compelled 
to buy material at fabulous prices from reckless people, who 
did some scandalous things to procure it; and some of these 



THE MARCHING YEARS 95 

people were medical students — more was the pity.* This 
state of things went on for two years or more before an aroused 
public sentiment throughout the State compelled the legis- 
lature to make the law compulsory instead of permissive. 
This permanently ended the trouble and put a stop to the 
heartrending outrages against decency. 

During this time of defiance by the county authorities 
they guarded the unclaimed dead with intense scruple, and 
tried to have them buried and stay buried. Toward the end 
of this period, Dr. Strong, the Demonstrator of Rush, came 
to me in midwinter in great distress, and begged for help in 
procuring material. He had been to Dr. Parkes, then Pro- 
fessor of Anatomy, for advice and direction. Parkes had 
declined either to advise or direct him — naturally fearing to 
be involved personally in a risk that properly belonged to 
the Demonstrator. There was at that time a warm friend 
of mine at Dunning, an assistant physician to the County 
Poorhouse and Insane Asylum, who had long desired to do 
me a favor. He was asked now to help Strong in any way 
he could, without involving himself in trouble. He promptly 
called to his aid a close friend of his, the most prominent 
man in that part of the town, an elderly, staid citizen who 
was anxious to do him a favor, and who had not lost the love 
of adventure of his youth. Together they soon brought 
results. 

A curious thing happened. The unclaimed bodies were 
then being gathered in an old smokehouse near the Asylum 
until a wagon load had accumulated, when they were all 
supposed to be buried at one time. The smokehouse was 
not merely kept locked ; it was guarded by a special watchman 
who was on duty every night. But one morning it was 
found that some half dozen bodies which were there the night 
before had disappeared. The county authorities were furious, 
and at once started an inquisition. The watchman was put 



*0ne of the students, the lesser of two offenders, went to the penitentiary for a 
year; while his pal and the greater offender ran away, and afterward committed suicide. 



96 THE MARCHING YEARS 

upon the rack, and swore that he had been at his post every 
minute during the night, and saw nobody. One policeman 
on Milwaukee Avenue testified that in the morning twilight 
he had seen a team, hitched to bob-sleds carrying a wagon 
box filled with hay, and with two men on the seat, which 
passed down the avenue toward the city. He thought it was 
merely a farmer going to town on normal business. This 
was all the County Board ever discovered about the theft. 

The poor watchman was discharged, of course. His con- 
duct was never explained to the inquisition. He was an 
honest old fellow who tried to tell the truth; but he forgot 
to state that, at near midnight, the kind apothecary had come 
out and said, "Mike, you'll freeze; come into the drug room 
and get warm"; that he came in, and that this good friend 
had treated him to a toddy; that he drank the toddy and, 
after warming himself and swapping stories with the apothe- 
cary, got up to go back to his duty, when the friend enter- 
tained him further with conversation and another toddy. 
Mike's warming inside and out kept him there more than half 
an hour, enough time for two husky men to hide several 
objects in a near-by barn. So when Mike came back to his 
duty the smokehouse was locked, and his beat was waiting 
for him, apparently as he had left it. 



CHAPTER IX. 

TEACHING MEDICINE. 

I BEGAN teaching medical students the fall after my 
graduation, having been appointed Assistant Demonstra- 
tor of Anatomy in my Alma Mater. Dr. Woodworth was 
the Demonstrator, but he hated the business of teaching in 
the anatomy room — he had asked for my appointment — and 
I did all that work, none too well, certainly, throughout the 
college year of 1868—9. The study and attention necessary to 
this, as well as the doing of it, were of great advantage to 
me, and the work itself was fascinating. It was during this 
season that my search for dissecting material occurred, which 
for a time strained my relations with my late friend Dr. 
Parkes, as described elsewhere in this narrative. 

At the end of the year Dr. Woodworth resigned, and Dr. 
Thos. Bond was appointed in his place. In that period of 
my career my ambitions were large. I had hoped to succeed 
Dr. Woodworth as Demonstrator, but the college authorities 
evidently knew some of my limitations, and probably felt 
that in professional Chicago I was a good deal of an experi- 
ment — which was true. Bond was a good fellow; older by 
some years than I, both in age and in the profession; was 
highly connected socially; was married and becoming estab- 
lished in practice. A year or two later I was a candidate for 
the chair of Materia Medica that was then vacant, and 
suffered some wholesome grief when it went to another. 
But the other was my classmate and lifelong friend, Wm. E. 
Quine, a gentleman of refinement and character, and an 
orator born. He has had an enviable career as a teacher 
and physician. He always preferred to lecture didactically, 
which has seemed curious to me, who have from the 
beginning preferred the clinical side. No professional brother 

[97] 



98 THE MARCHING YEAJIS 

of his was more glad than I of his early promotion, as none 
knew better his sterling qualities. 

My own disappointments did me good; they taught me 
that probably I was not yet fit for anything better. There 
was a new Professor of Anatomy, Dr. Boyd, who had come 
up from Quincy, Illinois, and he made me his assistant, to 
help him in dissections and to quiz the class in anatomy. 
This was a most important work for me; for it led to the dis- 
covery of the great educational value and spur to thought, of 
an intense searching quiz of a class of students; it confirmed 
in me then a habit of quizzing that continued through all 
my teaching years, often to the worry but sure benefit of 
all my students; and usually to my satisfaction — though 
sometimes to my grief. 

In the following year, 1870, Dr. Mary Thompson, who 
had a little hospital for women and children on the North 
Side, together with numerous friends of hers — both men and 
women — determined to establish a Woman's Medical College, 
since women were not admitted to either of the existing 
colleges. I was asked to take a chair in its faculty, and 
selected that of pathology. This relation continued three 
years with pleasure on my part and apparent satisfaction 
to the institution. The most attentive, business-like and 
serious minded medical students I ever taught were women. 
Women did not then, nor have they since, gone into medicine 
except with serious purpose. Men enter it with all shades 
of purpose, from serious to the most trivial. 

In 1872 Rush College decided to have a reorganized 
and enlarged spring faculty and a full course of instruction 
for about three months, beginning soon after the Com- 
mencement, early in the spring of each year. A less formid- 
able spring course had been going on for some time. I was 
asked to apply for the chair of the Practice of Medicine, and 
was told that it would be necessary to lecture competitively 
before the faculty and students. This I did, and was awarded 
the place. There was only one other competitor, and to 



THE MARCHING YEARS 99 

satisfy the faculty we had to lecture two evenings.* I gave 
the address f at the opening of the next spring course of 
lectures in the temporary college building "under the side- 
walk," and there all our lectures were given until the summer 
of 1876, inclusive, continuing afterward in the new college 
building, which was first occupied in the fall of that year. 

Thus began an association that has continued to the hour 
these lines are penned; an association that has brought me 
into close personal relations with some of the choicest souls 
in all the world, and has endowed my life with professional, 
social and spiritual joys that cannot be measured in words. 

In 1877 my weekly clinic on general medicine was begun 
and continued as a permanent institution. I began to teach 
in the regular winter term in 1882, and taught successively 
and variously hygiene, pathology, clinical medicine, physical 
diagnosis and general medicine. J 

From 1873 to 1905, inclusive, I lectured every year except 
in 1891-2, when I was expatriated to California with tubercu- 
losis. Partially recovered, I came back in the autumn of 
1893 and lectured a few weeks. This service was thereafter 
repeated every fall up to and including 1905. In the begin- 
ning of 1906, business interests in Mexico were engrossing 
my attention very much — interests that I was unwilling to 
neglect. For that reason the lecturing in the college was 
not resumed, but my interest in the institution never ceased 
or lessened. 

In 1900 I tendered my resignation as a professor in the 
college. This step had been long contemplated, as some of 
my colleagues knew, and had been delayed at their request. 

♦December 26 and 30, 1872. 

fMarch 5, 1873. 

JMy titles in Rush College were successively: "Lecturer on the Theory and Prin- 
ciples of Medicine" (1873); "Lecturer on the Principles and Practice of Medicine" 
(1876); "Adjunct Professor of the Principles and Practice of Medicine" (1881); "Pro- 
fessor of Hygiene and Adjunct," etc. (1882); Professor of Pathology and Adjunct," etc. 
(1886); "Professor of Clinical Medicine and Physical Diagnosis" (1889); "Professor 
of Medicine" (1898) (this last was after the affiliation with the University of Chicago); 
and "Emeritus Professor of Medicine" (1900) (this last after I tried to retire from the 
college and was not allowed to). 



100 THE MARCHING YEA.RS 

But the college had been for two years in affiliation with the 
University of Chicago, and university methods and smaller 
classes at lectures had been introduced. The arrangement 
was apparently working well, the faculty had been augmented 
and a larger career was ahead for the institution. It seemed 
to me that I could with good taste and propriety drop out; 
so I wrote my letter of resignation without consulting any- 
body. 

The college accepted my resignation by making me 
Emeritus Professor; and my name was kept on the list with 
a request to lecture on any subject at any time, as long 
as I cared to. 

It is a safe statement that of all the kinds of work I have 
ever done, teaching medicine has been the most enjoyable. 
The didactic teaching was pleasant, but not so much so as 
the clinical. I would rather give a clinic on medicine — a 
study of a disease with a case of it before us — to a class of 
critical, inquiring students, present by their own desire, 
than do any other piece of work in all my experience. 

My habit in didactic lecturing was to spend the first ten 
minutes of the hour in quizzing a few students on the subject 
of a previous lecture, making records of their answers, to be 
used in my final reckoning with them. More or less quizzing 
was also done regularly in the clinics. It was early discovered 
that I had an unenviable reputation among the students 
for severity in these quizzes. The quizzing was not meant to 
be severe, but only helpful in the process of learning, and 
especially in the art of close and critical observation. It is, 
however, true that, when a student's answer needed explana- 
tion or elaboration (as evidence that he had not guessed it) 
he was allowed, by a few kindly questions, to make his case 
solid. 

But the reputation was unpleasant, and would have been 
more so if it had not been true that this sort of quizzing is 
one of the most effective methods of teaching, and if, as the 
years came along, a lot of practicing graduates had not come 



THE MARCHING YEARS 101 

back to say how much advantage they were conscious of 
having derived from the quizzing they had received from me 
while in the college. In the presence of a large class of his 
fellows, it is small wonder the youth thus interrogated was 
often embarrassed, especially if he thought he was being 
cornered. One student who had just been dismayed by 
such an experience said in despair to a seat neighbor: "That 
man would quiz the devil on sulphur, and corner him." 

Nor was my reputation any better in final written exami- 
nations. The questions seemed to the students to be very 
difficult, but they were not. There were never any "catch 
questions," which are nearly always unfair; but some of the 
usual half dozen were so framed as to test the capacity of the 
student to think and reason — they could not be answered 
by simply remembering. Once a notice appeared on the 
hall blackboard to the effect that I would give at a certain 
hour the next day a final examination to the senior class. 
An hour after the exercise was over a student had written 
under the notice: "He did give it," underscoring the "did." 
An hour later, another and less reverent student had written 
under all, in red chalk, "Yes, you are damned right, he did." 

This teaching had to be done in the midst of the exacting 
demands of a general practice, and sometimes under pressure 
of official duties for the city of Chicago, which lasted seven 
years, three on the School Board and four on the Board of 
Election Commissioners. 

My practice in the early years was extremely small, 
but was during many of the later years a large one, much of 
it for the poor, who could pay only small fees or none at all. 
I once had a colleague who boasted that he never had any 
non-paying patients on his list — which I told the man he 
ought to be ashamed to say, if it were true. For every 
normal-hearted physician unavoidably has people on his list 
who cannot pay at the time of the services, or ever. My 
list of such cases was always large. Many of them were 
people who had employed and paid me in my days of small 



102 THE MARCHINGYEARS 

things, and whom I would serve, pay or no pay; many were 
struggling people of refinement and worth, caught by material 
misfortunes, whom it was always a pleasure to serve. For 
several years many hours of my time each week were given 
to the poor in the Central Free Dispensary — usually in the 
presence of students, for whom it was a continuing clinic. 
Likewise for many years a large amount of time was given to 
hospital work in the Cook County and the Presbyterian 
hospitals. This labor was always a pleasure, and valuable 
for teaching, as well as for equipment professionally — yet it 
took nervous energy as well as time. 

The methods of teaching doctors in the olden time, half 
a century or more ago, were mostly by didactic lectures 
nearly an hour long, three or four each day in close succession. 
There was very little in the way of illustration, things shown 
or done to aid the memory, except in the chemical laboratory 
and the anatomy room. It was a monotonous business, 
tiresome to body and mind — a memory-goading process.* 

Two courses of lectures of three or four months each 
(usually the same lectures repeated) were required for gradua- 
tion, and the student had to present a letter from a practi- 
tioner of medicine, presumably in good standing, to the 
effect that he had been studying medicine at least three 
years prior to his graduation. (Sometimes students gave 
letters from men who themselves had never been graduated 
from even one of the cheap schools.) Few or no questions 
were asked of the student, on admission, as to his general 
education, whether he had attended school, high school or 
college — or whether he could even read and write. Most of 
the medical schools were called "proprietary," since their 
trustees were senior members of the faculty, and any profits 
derived from fees were divided among the latter. 

In many of the medical colleges, so-called, the teaching 
was less practical than the teaching of trades to apprentices, 

*Some recent experimental studies have shown that only ten per cent of things 
taught by words are remembered, while of things perceived by the eye thirty per cent 
are remembered. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 103 

for these were at least required not only to handle the tools 
of their craft, but to become by practice expert with them. 

As the years came along, clinical studies, clinics in the 
colleges, and laboratory exercises of many sorts gradually 
came into vogue in response to a growing public sentiment, 
a belief, both in the profession and out of it, that medical 
education averaged altogether too low. In response to the 
same influence many of the proprietary schools were 
gradually driven into union with universities or with other 
weak colleges, to make stronger ones, and so afford more 
laboratories and clinical advantages; and more and much 
better teaching. Many of the weaker schools ceased to exist. 

More serious conditions began to be required for admis- 
sion to medical schools, easy conditions at first, which 
progressively grew more severe until some college work, 
largely along scientific lines (usually at least two years of it) , 
came finally to be a fixed requirement in every first-class 
school in the country. 

This progress in medical teaching was hastened by the 
legislatures of many of the states, which passed laws fixing 
conditions of admission to practice, some states making them 
extremely severe. As a result of all this progress, medical 
incompetence and quackery have been much reduced — but 
only reduced, not abolished. Perhaps they never can be 
wholly done away with, owing to the mental tendency on 
the part of many simple minds to believe in the things that 
quacks promise, and to think that the prosecution of a 
professional mountebank is unfair. 

Through all the years of improvement in medical teaching, 
the credit for the progress made is largely due to the teachers 
themselves — especially the junior teachers, who were more 
often fired with the progressive spirit — aided by educators 
in general; they together aroused a wholesome public senti- 
ment that has helped. The progress has been more or less 
of a fight, because _of the several sects of so-called healers 
who have had little difficulty in convincing some sections of 



104 THE MARCHING YEARS 

•> 
the public, and always some legislators, that the true art 
of healing comes by intuition to certain persons, or comes 
direct from God, and not through learning, patient investi- 
gation and experience. But there has been some advantage 
in such opposition, for it has spurred on scientific research 
and thoroughness to a point that, half a century ago, had 
not entered the vision of reformers as among the possibilities. 
This progress has been a greater and more beneficent boon 
to the people as a whole than they know, or can well know, 
for it has done two things that are the chief purpose and duty 
of the profession: It has made attacks of sickness less 
painful and long; and it has lengthened the average span 
of human life. 

A volume of amusing history could be related of the old 
time medical schools, and some of it would seem the more 
curious to those doctors who have no memory of it themselves. 
Some of the story shows the unsophistication, the mental 
and spiritual innocence, of the students; some of it reveals 
their acumen, for they were not fools, if they did come mostly 
from the farms and shops, with little preliminary schooling; 
and they sometimes revealed a shrewdness that surprised 
the classicists. 

The experiences of students then were altogether different 
from those of today. There was a dearth of practical things 
in the teaching; things for the learners to do in the learning. 
There was some slight compensation in the differing person- 
alities, ways of saying and doing things, among the several 
members of the faculty. In the lectures they frequently con- 
tradicted each other, teaching somewhat conflicting doc- 
trines, to the confusion of students who had read so little 
and heard so little of men's opinions on debatable questions 
as not to know that in medicine there must be many such 
questions. 

The students metaphorically dissected each teacher in his 
ways, opinions and character. This was a diversion from 
the monotony of lectures, and it helped. It was especially 



THE MARCHING YEARS 105 

the case if there was something peculiar about the teacher 
or his teaching; if he was elegant or awkward, or used good, 
bad or bizarre language (only many of the students were 
unable to distinguish between good and bizarre language) ; 
or if he told stories and jokes to relieve the tedium of his 
talk, as one wise and venerable professor in the old Rush 
College always did. 

If there was a large class of young men crowded together 
in a steep amphitheatre, men who met there day after day 
and were not dominated by some restraining influence, and 
if they were kept waiting long for the lecturer to appear, 
they often broke into song. The favorite was "John Brown's 
Body," in the familiar tune to which the "Battle Hymn of 
the Republic" is usually sung. When sung by two hundred 
or more men it was rather grand music, and it always filled 
the time, and worked off some surplus energy. But if no- 
body started the singing, perhaps a couple of fellows sitting 
back of the first or second row of seats might reach down in 
front of them and lay hold of some selected victim and lift 
him bodily, and pass him up to those sitting back of them, 
who in turn would pass him to others, till he might land on 
the topmost seat, if he were not specially vigorous or an 
expert wriggler or scrapper. Sometimes his clothing would 
be badly torn, and some seats might be broken, but that 
would not matter to the participants. However normally 
demure and decorous the men on the successive rows of seats 
might be, there were nearly always some who could not 
resist taking a part in the scrimmage the moment it began. 
The performance was familiarly known as passing up. ■ 

These things often happened in certain schools, and almost 
never in others where the conditions were apparently the 
same, and the reason was not easy to tell. The explanation 
of them must probably be found in several circumstances: 
One is the pent-up energy of a lot of young men, sitting still 
and listening almost continuously for hours each day, and 
having too little exercise. Another is the lack of things to 



106 THE MARCHING YEARS 

do by themselves that they must record and be judged by, 
like work in a laboratory or a hospital. Something must be 
charged to numbers — large groups take impulsive tangents 
more often than small ones. Aggravation at a tardy lec- 
turer, and the demoralizing effect on some of idleness, even 
of short duration, count for something; so may also the 
presence of a few fellows with no bad motives, but with a 
spirit of pure mischief, and maybe an itching to display their 
daring among their comrades, as egotistic children often do. 
The very fashion in mischief is a temptation to start some 
of it, like the fashions in clothes and slang. Dissatisfaction 
with the school might lead certain minds to do mischief as 
a protest, while pure love of adventure is always present and 
must account for a lot of fireworks, first and last. 

Some critics insist that lack of preliminary education and 
want of essential refinement of character must be mostly 
responsible for the explosions, but this theory is untenable. 
Hazings and other forms of college lawlessness have occurred 
in many lands and times, among educated men from the best 
families rather oftener than otherwise. Indeed, the boys 
with little schooling, who are poor and struggling for an 
education, are rather freer from such dangers than their 
more (or less) fortunate fellows. 

We know with more certainty of influences that conspire 
to orderliness and decorum in college activities, and to the 
highest efficiency in the business of learning. Some of these 
are small classes, relative intimacy and nearness of teachers, 
the presence of women, hard and diversified work, and some 
outdoor exercise each day. Rush College in the early days 
had some of the troubles referred to, but never since the 
affiliation with the University of Chicago, with severer 
conditions of admission, university methods, small classes, 
and more intensive work for the students. 

To the young lecturer on medicine in a former r6gime 
there were many perplexities beside turmoils in his classes. 
Usually he did not study his own psychology, and he nearly 



THE MARCHING YEARS 107 

always failed to grasp the psychology of his students. He 
misjudged the capacity for memory on the part of the men 
who listened to him. So he usually loaded his discourse with 
a flood of details that choked the memory of the students 
and left them with a jumble of indistinct impressions — to 
grow afterward more indistinct. 

In his clarifying maturity he came to know that if a 
lecture could impress half a dozen points of real value, and 
if half of them could be remembered, and become a basis for 
after-reasoning, it was a successful lecture — and that it had 
the further virtue of being interesting. 



CHAPTER X. 

HOSPITALS. 

The Cook County Hospital: 

WHEN I was first graduated in medicine the Cook 
County Hospital was a building of wholly inadequate 
size, in the center of a large lot at the southwest corner 
of Eighteenth and Arnold Streets, Chicago. I often attended 
clinics there during my undergraduate days, when Dr. Senn 
was the sole interne and Drs. Edwin Powell, R. G. Bogue, 
J. P. Ross and H. Webster Jones were among the attendants. 
The building had been erected many years before by the 
city for a City Hospital, and had been operated as such — 
and for and by the Federal Government during the Civil 
War — until it was discovered that the city was not legally 
obliged to take care of its ordinary indigent sick, but that 
such duty belonged to the county. Then the hospital 
passed under control of the county and became a county 
charge, housing only the sick poor. 

When the building of Rush College on the North Side was 
destroyed by the great fire in 1871, the county allowed the 
college corporation to build a temporary structure on the 
corner of its lot, to serve until a new County Hospital should 
be built, the intention being to erect a proper college building 
near the hospital, wherever it might be. The temporary 
building was referred to as "under the sidewalk" because the 
level of the lot was many feet lower than the sidewalk, so 
that in entering the college we had to go down stairs. This 
rough looking building was used until the end of the spring 
course of 1876. The new college building was then finished, 
and was duly dedicated October fourth of that year, Dr. 
Ross giving the chief address. 

There had been for years an increasing need for a larger 
hospital, one that would to some extent meet the demands 

[108] 



THE MARCHING YEARS i09 

of the future; and all who studied the subject believed 
that the building ought to be located nearer the geographical 
center of the city. It would naturally require a large tract 
of land for its particular and varied purposes, and for future 
additional buildings. But the County Board was reluctant 
to act; the members had to be convinced of the public need 
or demand for a new hospital. Some advocates of it were 
suspicious that certain members of the Board were looking 
for private pecuniary "arguments," but I am not at all certain 
that they were right. The public, outside of the medical 
profession, soon began to clamor for a new hospital, or seemed 
to clamor. Numerous letters were published in the daily 
papers, evidently written at if not to the County Board, 
arguing, coaxing and scolding that body for its dilatoriness. 
This series of letters continued for months; they were signed 
by such names as "Publicus," "Citizen," "Progress," 
"Kicker," and by various misleading initials. They were 
inspired chiefly by Dr. J. P. Ross, and many of them were 
written by Dr. I. N. Danforth and myself. Thus we created 
public opinion — we expressed what we were fully convinced 
public opinion ought to be, and what it would have been, 
had the public known, as well as we did, the need for a new 
and larger hospital. Our consciences were helped by the 
editors, who believed our campaign was a just one, and who 
were as glad to print the letters as we were to write them, and 
they occasionally printed an editorial to the same end. Some 
of the letters and many interviewed persons urged the loca- 
tion of the hospital on a particular large tract of land that 
was known to be for sale — the one that was finally bought — 
at the southwest corner of Wood and Harrison Streets. 

In response to the "manifest" public demand the County 
Board had to act; it bought the large tract of land, two or 
more ordinary city blocks, where the hospital was finally 
built. There is reason to think that some of the members 
of the County Board were glad to have the letters before the 
public, for they could be quoted in their own defense in case 



110 THE MARCHING YEARS 

of criticism for extravagance in buying the land or building 
the hospital. And before the hospital was finished there 
was reason enough for criticism of extravagance, especially 
in the erection of the central or executive wing, with an 
amphitheatre for lectures that was two or three times the 
size that ever could be required; and other rooms so vast 
and costly as to be a scandal. Years afterward, in order 
to find use for some of these rooms, the institution began to 
take pay patients, thereby competing with the various 
private hospitals of the city. But whether or not the 
hospital cost too much, it was a great benefit to the 
county, and the Board was entitled to credit for building it. 

Some years later, a few members of a subsequent County 
Board were caught in graft charges or some other form of 
felony in their official conduct, and went to the penitentiary. 
It was a pitiful scandal, because it revealed dishonesty in 
public officials — some of it being connected with the hospital 
— and because it led the public to wonder if it did not include 
every member of the Board. There was a group of honest 
members who knew nothing whatever about the grafting. 
The guilty ones did not dare to have them know of it, much 
less approach them about it. 

For a long time before any arrests were made, those in 
the confidence of the prosecuting officers knew that positive 
proof was being gathered, and that the storm might break 
any day. I knew it was liable to involve one of the highest 
employes of the Board, a man who, through many years, had 
built up a good reputation as a public official and otherwise, 
and toward whom I felt a genuine friendship. I was loath 
to believe that he could be the chief engineer and boss of the 
grafting — actually handling and dividing the graft, as was 
freely alleged; and one evening I invited him by telephone 
to come to my house. He came at once and I told him the 
kind of evidence the prosecutor appeared to have against 
certain of the commissioners and himself. It was on my 
part an act of disinterested friendship, and I hoped he would 



THE MARCHING YEARS 111 

so regard it. But he did not; he resented it, and seemed to 
infer that I expected him to desert his friends and help con- 
vict them. This he said, in the most positive manner, he 
would never do. He denied nothing, and confessed nothing; 
but left me to assume that the accusations against him were 
true. But he had shown me one trait that is always ad- 
mirable: he would not desert his friends, even if they were 
felons. He was arrested, and by various devices avoided 
the penitentiary, but his career was wrecked — a pitiful waste 
of a good reputation and an undeserved blow to a worthy 
family. 

First and last, I did a great deal of faithful service as 
an attending physician for the County Hospital; and I 
enjoyed the work immensely. Its rewards were great in 
professional experience; in the gratitude of the poor for every 
kindness and attention given them; in working with a suc- 
cession of superior internes — who got their positions by 
competitive examinations, and who were as stimulating as 
they were superior; and finally in seeing created and developed, 
in connection with the hospital, the Illinois Training School 
for Nurses, and working with the pupils and graduates of 
that school. 

The progress in the science and art of medicine since my 
study of it began has been astounding; and with every step 
of progress life has been made easier and the average span 
of life a little longer. But few contributions to these values 
have exceeded the benefits that came to us when we began 
to have women trained in the business of nursing the sick. 
The practice became more scientific, both doctor and nurse 
were stimulated to do better work, and for the doctor the 
nurse provided and furnished him new hands and eyes and 
ears, and loyal watchfulness. 

The training school was inaugurated in 1880 by Miss 
Mary E. Brown (later Mrs. Richard Dewey). Her superior 
work as a superintendent has been carried on by a succession 
of women who have done ample credit to the school and the 



112 THE MARCHING YEARS 

calling. As with all other first-class schools, the conditions 
of admission, of study and of graduation have been growing 
more severe, so that progressively better service has been 
rendered the public, and more honor brought to the profession. 

There has been no break in the continuity of the services 
of the school in the County Hospital. Plentiful rumors have 
arisen at times that it was to be turned out; but the authori- 
ties have doubtless discovered that such a task was too big 
for them, under any but the most extraordinary circumstances 
of abuse of privileges and neglect of duty — conditions that 
never have occurred, and that in all human probability never 
will occur. 

While I was on the staff of the Hospital in 1881, the 
County Commissioners ordained that women should be ad- 
mitted, the same as men, to competitive examination for 
interneships. This was a radical innovation, and several 
members of the staff were strongly opposed to it. They 
believed that a woman in the midst of a group of young 
men internes would be an element of demoralization, and the 
destruction of discipline; and that it ought to be prevented if 
possible. I was benighted enough to agree with them that 
it was unfortunate that women were to be admitted to the 
examination; and I hoped that none would apply. But if 
they came it was clear that they must have the same tests 
as the men, and be judged fairly by the same standards. 

At the next examination two women and half a dozen or 
more men appeared as competitors for four positions to be 
filled. The women were both graduates of the Woman's 
Medical College of Chicago. One by one, the candidates 
came before the eight austere members of the staff, sitting en 
banc, and were examined orally by each of us. Each ex- 
aminer made penciled memoranda of the value of the answers 
to his questions, respectively. As the quizzing came to an 
end it was evident that, because of her scholarship and quick 
mind, at least one woman would come dangerously near 
being entitled to a position. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 113 

After the ordeal was over for the grilled applicants, it was 
agreed that we should decide their fate by ballot, all their 
names being written on one slip of paper or ballot for each 
member of the staff, he affixing a number to each name in 
the order of their merit according to his judgment. Number 
1 would indicate the highest standing. This plan would 
give the lowest combined number to the best, and the highest 
one to the poorest of them. 

The ballot was taken, and Dr. Frank Billings stood first 
on each paper; his combination was therefore eight; the poorest 
standing was in the forties or fifties. Dr. Mary Bates was 
found to have won the lowest position by one figure or 
numeral. After the result had been recorded by the Secretary, 
and the papers used for ballots were about to be destroyed, 
Dr. M., a member of the staff, arose and announced that Dr. 
C. had made a mistake in the figures of his memorandum 
slip, and that his ballot therefore was slightly in error. He 
moved that the gentleman be allowed to change his vote. 

I stoutly opposed this as being wholly irregular. To go 
back of the correctly announced result of a vote by ballot; 
to identify the slip of paper voted by a certain man, allow 
him to alter it, and then to revise the result, was to throw 
all usage to the winds. The discussion became very warm 
among certain members of the staff. The warmth was not 
assuaged by the statement from Dr. C, in response to a 
question, that his changed vote would deprive Dr. Bates of 
her one numeral of victory. 

Drs. M. and C. were known to be opposed to women 
internes, and I could not resist the suspicion that if the person 
to be defeated had not been a woman, this question would 
never have been raised. This suspicion led me finally to 
do the only piece of political sharp practice of my life. 
I would not agree to have the finished ballot tampered 
with, but suggested that a legal way to get over the difficulty 
would be to abolish and declare void the ballot already 
taken, and order another one. Moreover, this would allow 



114 THE MARCHING YEARS 

other members of the staff to change their votes as the result 
of further reflection — maybe Drs. Gunn and Parkes had 
discovered reasons other than mathematical for changing 
their votes; maybe I had. 

My suggestion was unanimously and promptly agreed to. 
Then another suspicion seized me, namely, that in the new 
voting the young woman would not merely lose her place 
by one numeral, but that several figures would be the 
measure of a determination to defeat her beyond all accidents. 
Then it was that I speculated on the superiority of my 
friend — my friend then, and increasingly so through all the 
years since. I knew that Dr. Billings was safe for first place 
if on my ballot he and Dr. Bates were made to change places. 
It could not harm him, and would give her four numbers 
to the good — and in view of the probable plot against her 
she needed the four numbers. The new vote was taken, 
the ballots were counted, and behold, she had again won her 
position by one figure! The outcome showed that my last 
suspicion was well founded, and that probably the first was 
also. Four figures were voted against Dr. Bates, which my 
four balanced exactly. 

Dr. Billings took first place, and has since become, as 
he then gave promise of becoming, a great physician, a great 
dean, a great citizen, and a great army officer as the colonel 
in charge of the restoration of soldiers wounded and in- 
valided in the Great War. Dr. Bates, far from demoralizing 
the hospital, set an efficiency mark for all internes that have 
followed her. She was afterward a professor in the Woman's 
College, and has made a creditable career in the profession. 

It was while I was an attending physician in the County 
Hospital that I had a private patient in the pay department 
of the institution, when some enemies that I did not deserve 
— probably political ones — tried to make it appear that I 
had violated a rule of the hospital that applied solely to the 
poor wards. It was a clumsy piece of persecutive fraud — so 
easily refuted by the simple record. This incident is further 



THE MARCHING YEARS 115 

described in another part of this narrative, and in the 
Appendix. 

I was a medical attendant at the Emergency Hospital of 
the Chicago Relief and Aid Society in the fall and winter of 
1871, which had been erected for the relief of the sick among 
the burnt-out people of the great fire.* 

The Presbyterian Hospital: 

Our Professor Ross, of Rush College, was a Presbyterian 
with a brain for construction. He knew, as we all did, that 
there was a dearth of hospitals on the West Side of the city, 
and that the college ought to have for its clinical teaching 
more hospital facilities than the county institution could 
afford. He determined that there should be a hospital next 
to, and attached to, the college, with doors opening directly 
into it. He began to work for this soon after the completion 
of the college building, and all his friends in and out of the 
college helped as much as they could. 

Ross naturally turned for a name and permanent manage- 
ment to his own religious denomination, and the Presbyterian 
order gave the hospital its name and created its organization 
as it has developed, and has maintained it to a large degree 
ever since. The institution was never sectarian; and long 
ago its reputation became so good and well established that 
a large part of its support has come from outside the one 
religious denomination. Repeated additions have been made 
to its land and buildings until the hospital covers an entire 
block, with the exception of the corner occupied by a part of 
the college buildings. 

It is a great, fireproof, modern hospital, equipped with 
all sorts of necessary scientific facilities. Its scientific, 
humanitarian and teaching work are second to none. Its 
training school for nurses was one of the first to demand at 
least a high school diploma as a condition for admission to 



*See Chapter on "Chicago Charity." 



116 THE MARCHING YEARS 

its classes, and its standard of work has always been as high 
as any. 

I was one of the attending staff in the department of 
medicine for nearly or quite two decades. Time and service 
were given without stint, but no work that I ever did was 
more richly rewarded. The recompense was greater than 
money, for it was made up of experience useful to others 
(and passed on to others through successive groups of stu- 
dents), of a conscious mental ripening, and of a fellowship 
with some great and unselfish souls in a work of devotion to 
the sick and afflicted. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE MEDICAL PRESS. 

IN 1872 the late Dr. T. D. Fitch and I published 
the first volume of the "Chicago Medical Register and 

Directory." It was a little affair of 360 pages, duodecimo, 
and was sold mostly to physicians and druggists. It con- 
tained "A Description of the Medical Colleges, Hospitals, 
Infirmaries, Asylums and Charitable Institutions, together 
with the Medical and Other Scientific Associations of the 
Entire State of Illinois." 

It gave a list of physicians in Chicago who were in good 
and regular standing in the profession, as determined by a 
board of revisers consisting of the presidents of Rush, the 
Chicago, and the Woman's Medical Colleges; the Chicago 
Medical Society, the Chicago Association of Physicians and 
Surgeons, and of the Illinois State Medical Society. No 
list of this sort could be made and published in any city in 
the country without some criticism from those who were left 
out, and their friends. We reduced the blame to ourselves 
by referring the complaints to those veterans in the profession, 
Drs. J. W. Freer, N. S. Davis, W. H. Byford, G. C. Paoli, 
D. B. Trimble and D. W. Young. 

The list of physicians contained 305 names. In January, 
1920, there were known to me to be living only twenty- 
three of these people. 

The copies sold and the advertisements barely paid for 
publishing the book; I did substantially all the work of the 
publication, and it was profitable to me by the exercise as 
editor and compiler of a book that required above all things 
accuracy at every step. 

Some experience in medical journalism and the formation 
of a medical library came to me in 1875. For many years 
the monthly Chicago Medical Journal had been published 

[117] 



118 THE MARCHING YEARS 

rather in the interest of Rush College; likewise the Chicago 
Medical Examiner in the interest of the Chicago College. 
They had been edited for years by Dr. J. Adams Allen and 
Dr. N. S. Davis, respectively. There had been brewing for 
some time a movement to consolidate the two and make one 
stronger journal, divested of any college leaning. The effort 
materialized in the formation of a joint stock company 
called the "Chicago Medical Press Association," with two 
distinct functions: The issuing of a monthly journal by 
merging the two rivals under the title of the Chicago Medical 
Journal and Examiner, and the creation of a medical library 
for the use of the profession. 

The first issue of the new Journal was in September, 
1875. Dr. Wm. H. Byford was Chief Editor and Drs. 
Etheridge, Bridge, Hyde and Hotz* were Associate Editors, 
who were to do the serious work of editorial management. 
The publishers were Messrs. Wm. B. Keen, Cooke & Co. 
Early in 1877 the Press Association became its own pub- 
lisher and so remained until 1889, when the journal was 
discontinued. 

The Associate Editors took turns: — changing each month — 
in doing the heavy work of the sanctum, which was good for 
their own development, but not the best way for the journal. 
For the most effective results there should be always one hand 
constantly at the details of such a job; and later this was 
provided for by the appointment of Dr. E. Fletcher Ingals 
as Assistant Editor. For several years he had constant 
charge of all details, and did his work well — as he always 
did well whatever he undertook. He was succeeded by Dr. 
D. R. Brower, who was a most worthy successor. 

I look back on my work-fellowship with these editorial 
associates with great pleasure. They were all superior in 
character, knowledge and refinement, and they were capable 
of the most harmonious team work. Each one was superior 
in his own field of special study, and they were all imbued 

*Janies H. Etheridge, James Nevins Hyde and F. C Hotz. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 119 

with the highest ideals of professional and personal ethics. 
I retired from the editorial field in December, 1877, to give 
more personal attention to the library, having been for over 
a year the Librarian of record. Dr. Etheridge retired at the 
same time, having assumed the exacting duties of Secretary 
of Rush College. 

My editorial experience of twenty-seven months impressed 
me with the value of such work to develop a critical habit 
in the use of language, for telling things cleverly and dis- 
tinctly. No more useful addition could be made to the course 
of study of English in schools and colleges, than some 
systematic drill in proof-reading and the editing of manu- 
scripts written on many subjects, by all sorts of writers. 

We developed the Journal in a creditable way; it was 
twice as large .as either of its predecessors, and satisfied the 
Association that substantial progress had been made in local 
medical journalism. But the growing fame and usefulness 
of the new Journal of the American Medical Association, 
issued weekly, published in Chicago, begun in 1883, made the 
local journal a work of diminishing necessity. 

Medical journalism in this country has advanced rapidly 
since that day. The great leader has been the Journal of 
the American Medical Association. In connection with the 
Journal itself, its organization has kept up extensive research 
in several lines for the advantage of the profession, and 
through it of the public. The Journal has been the mouth- 
piece of the profession, and it has enhanced the value and 
extended the membership of the Association enormously. It 
has powerfully fostered the movement for the betterment of 
medical education throughout the country ; and has done what 
was possible to repress medical quackery. 

As a part of this great movement, there have been estab- 
lished during the past thirty years a dozen or more journals 
devoted exclusively to the publication of the results of original 
research in the different departments of medicine. Sub- 
stantially all these publications prosper, and this fact is one 



120 THE MARCHING YEARS 

of the most solid and convincing proofs of the progress in 
ambition and scholarship of the American profession. 

Before the great fire of 1871 the Cook County Medical 
Association had begun the gathering of books for a library. 
Its accumulation of a few hundred volumes was destroyed 
by that calamity, and the project was not resumed. Our 
Library of the Press Association was started in the rooms of 
the Academy of Sciences at 263 Wabash Avenue. There 
were formal inaugural ceremonies there on the evening of 
June 30, 1876. Dr. R. C. Hamill was President, and 
presided. Dr. Etheridge was Secretary. Enthusiasm was 
there in plenty, and speeches to voice it. 

In a year the Library was moved to rooms of its own at 
188 South Clark Street, where it remained until it was merged 
with the medical department of the Chicago Public Library, 
on May 10, 1884. The Public Library later gave it to 
the Newberry Library; and in February, 1906, the collection 
went from the Newberry to the John Crerar Library, in 
the heart of the business section of the city.* Along with it 
went a great collection of medical books, previously presented 
to the Newberry by Dr. Nicholas Senn, comprising his own 
personal collection and a large library he had purchased 
abroad. Our collection was small (1,600 bound volumes and 
many of unbound periodicals) compared with what Dr. Senn 
was able to give, but it had the distinction of being the pioneer 
medical library in Chicago that attained the maturity of 
practical usefulness. With the Senn Library and our modest 
collection there were also turned over to the Crerar more than 
26,000 books that had been given the Newberry by the 
Medical Library Association of Chicago from 1890 to 1903, 
inclusive. This Association was formed by the Chicago 
Medical Society in 1889, and was incorporated in September 
of that year. It must have been enterprising to accomplish 
so much in so short a time. 



*The Field Building, Wabaah Avenue and Washington Street. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 121 

Our Library was open on business days from 10 to 4 
o'clock, but was consulted by only a few, comparatively, of 
the many who needed it. This is, I am sure, the experience 
of all similar libraries; only the few who are studying special 
subjects consult them much; and this is an argument for 
every man to have a good working library of his own if he 
can afford it. But although only a few practitioners consult 
the large libraries, the need of them for that few is sufficient 
justification for all the expense and trouble to create and 
maintain them. 

After we had started the Medical Press Library we 
learned that Dr. J. M. Toner, of Washington, D. C, had a 
large collection of medical books that he was willing to give 
us if we could and would take care of it, open it to the public 
and preserve it in connection with the donor's name. It 
illustrates the thoughtless enthusiasm that we had at the 
beginning of our library project, that we actually thought we 
might buy ground in the heart of the city, build a library 
building, take the Toner library for a nucleus and go on to 
become a rival of the great library of the Surgeon General's 
office in Washington — and do it all through voluntary sub- 
scriptions, mostly from medical men. One of the curiosities 
I have preserved is our first subscription paper for this 
purpose, which I circulated myself. The very few small 
subscriptions we got gave us an insight into the only way 
that such a scheme can develop properly, namely, by public 
appropriation by city or state, or by the gift of wealthy 
philanthropists in amounts large enough to start and main- 
tain the work in a useful manner, without the need to pass 
the hat around for gifts from a class of men who rarely ac- 
cumulate surplus money. The great John Crerar Library of 
Chicago is a striking illustration in point. It has a magni- 
ficent medical as well as general collection of books, and an 
income from the gift of its far-seeing founder to maintain 
and add to it perpetually. It has also funds for a new 



122 THE MARCHING YEARS 

building of its own, the erection of which on the corner of 
Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street was begun in 1920. 

Only a decade after we had learned our lesson, the wise 
men of the Library Association of the Chicago Medical 
Society had the fatuous faith that they might be able to buy 
ground and erect a building and maintain a great medical 
library. The records show that they soon began to give 
their books to the Newberry Library. Maybe they too have 
some old subscription paper with a few signatures. 



CHAPTER XII. 

PUBLIC OFFICE. 

The Board of Education of Chicago: 

I WAS appointed a member of the Board of Education of 
Chicago by the first Mayor Harrison in 1881, for a term 

of three years. The Board consisted of fifteen members, 
five going out of office each year, and their places being filled 
by nomination by the Mayor, and confirmation by the 
Common Council of the city. 

The Mayor was a democrat, and his custom was to appoint 
each year three democrats and two republicans. I was a 
republican, and on entering the Board on July 14 there 
were ten democrats and five republicans. It was the ambi- 
tion of most of the members that there should be no politics 
in the business of the Board, and, to emphasize this attitude, 
I was, on September 8, upon the nomination of Mr. Thomas 
Brenan, a democrat, elected Vice-President of the Board, to 
take the place of the previous incumbent, whose term on the 
Board had expired. Mr. M. A. DeLany was then President. 
The term of Mr. DeLany on the Board soon expired, and he 
ceased to be President. The rules required that the Vice- 
President should for the rest of the year perform the duties 
of President, but the Board decided, on the motion of Mr. 
A. C. Story, a democrat, that I should have the title as well 
as the duties of President. 

At the end of my first year of membership my brief 
term as President ended, and some of the democrats thought, 
not unnaturally, that the minority had received all the honors 
it was entitled to — -which was true enough — and that now a 
democrat should be elected President. But some of the 
democrats and all the republicans thought that to fail to 
elect me for a full term would be equivalent to a vote of want 

[123] 



124 THE MARCHING YEARS 

of confidence, and that I deserved the privilege of naming 
the standing committees of the Board for a year's work, my 
brief service as President having been with the DeLany 
committees. They also said I ought to have the honor of 
signing one annual report of the Board; so they elected* me 
by a sufficient majority. Any log rolling that was done for 
my re-election was the work of my friends, certainly not my 
own work; but I was asked by a democratic friend, a member 
who was anxious to be President, whether if re-elected I 
would be a candidate for the same office the following year, 
and I answered no. 

My list of committees was promptly approved, and we 
had a year of prosperity in the school system. But toward 
the end of the year disquieting rumors were in the air that 
some of the democratic members had unfriendly designs 
against the Superintendent of Schools, Mr. George Howland, 
who had looked with disfavor upon some efforts to establish 
political and personal privilege in the educational department 
of the school system. Several members of both parties had 
the impression that if a certain member "were to succeed 
me it might lead not only to the displacement of Howland, 
but to a general shake-up, if not demoralization, throughout 
the department. 

Mr. Howland had been in the schools for over twenty 
years; for a long time as principal of the sole high school of 
the city. He had the respect and confidence of teachers and 
public to a high degree. The suggestion that he might be 
displaced aroused widespread and loud protest wherever it 
was heard. A quiet canvass was made by members of 
the Board to prevent such" a possible calamity; and one of 
the measures suggested to forestall it, was to re-elect me 
President. They did not consult me as to the use of my 
name — and I kept silence on that phase of the subject, but 
freely denounced any scheme to invade the school depart- 
ment with partisan purposes. Before the election, the 

♦September 14, 1882. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 125 

members supposed to have sinister designs disavowed any 
intention or desire to disturb the policy or personnel of the 
school department, or make it a field for political contention 
or spoils — and the after-history of the Board for some years 
has seemed to justify them. 

Up to the time of the election, many of the members 
supposed that I was to be re-elected. The fear of this in 
certain quarters, and the reasons for it were, I knew, a whole- 
some influence for the good of the schools. Nobody pre- 
sumed to ask me, and I made no statement or protest until 
just before the ballot on the evening of the election, 
after my name had been placed in nomination in opposition 
to that of my democratic friend. Then I arose and thanked 
my friends for their confidence; told them that I was not a 
candidate by any wish of my own, and asked them kindly to 
refrain from voting for me. My friend, Mr. Adolph Kraus, 
was elected, and served his year with, I believe, complete 
faithfulness to the best interests of the schools. Mr. How- 
land was not only undisturbed, but continued to be the 
superintendent for years afterward — until broken health 
compelled his retirement. 

Mrs. Ella Flagg Young, who later became the principal 
of the Normal School and afterward for several years the 
general superintendent, was at that time the principal of 
the Skinner School, near our home. It was plain to any 
competent observer who watched her management and work, 
that she was a superior and progressive educator, with 
capabilities for school management of the highest order. 
Her promotions were deserved — she was no accident. 

During my presidency it was my fortune to serve her in an 
unusual way. Her school building came to possess and was 
possessed by a terrible odor, of which neither the janitor, 
plumber, health officer nor her own committeeman from the 
Board could discover the cause. The nuisance had continued 
for many days, and was getting on the nerves of everybody 
in the schoolhouse. She came with apologies for bothering 



126 THE MARCHING YEARS 

me, and asked me to help her. Various tests had been made, 
some of them quite scientific, to discover the trouble, and 
none had succeeded. But no one had resorted to the simple 
trick of the great odor hunter of the world, the common 
bloodhound. 

I went to the school and soon found that the strongest 
odor was easily located in the lower hall, on the main floor, 
with its greatest concentration about the main stairway. 
Then by ambulating up and down the stairs on hands and 
feet, and behaving as much like a hound following a scent 
as is possible to a human being, it was easy to locate the 
very stair-tread under which the janitor, with the aid of a 
crowbar, soon found the malorodous body of a long-dead 
rat. 

The school system of Chicago has expanded enormously 
since my day on the Board. During the year 1882-3 the 
amount of money spent on the schools of Chicago was 
$1,327,837.63. The number of teachers was 1,107, and of 
the pupils, 72,509. There were seventy-six schools, of which 
eight were in rented buildings. The annual cost per pupil 
was $18.31. 

In the year 1913-4 the money spent on running the schools 
was $12,132,631; on new buildings $5,434,784. The records 
do not show the number of teachers. The number of schools 
was 301, of which thirty were normal, high and special 
schools; sixteen were in rented buildings. Pupils numbered 
370,262. The annual cost per pupil was $32.76. 

The Election Commission of Chicago: 

In the summer of 1886 there was a republican vacancy 
in the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. It was a 
legal requirement that it should be filled by a republican. 
The appointment was in the gift of the county judge — then 
Richard Prendergast — under whose jurisdiction the Board 
acted. The law creating the body required that at least one 
of the three commissioners must belong to each of the two 



THE MARCHING YEARS 127 

leading political parties in the State. The judge was a 
democrat, and the republican was a minority member. 

Evidently thinking I would be as little trouble to him as 
any republican, the judge appointed me. I took office on 
September 9 to serve out a fractional term of some fifteen 
months. My first colleagues were a democrat and a labor 
party man. They were pleasant gentlemen to get along 
with. In all activities outside the routine of the office, in 
all matters of appointment of subordinates, or that could 
affect party influence, the majority members were under the 
constant sway of the judge, who was a shrewd politician and 
an ardent partisan. They followed his wishes with apparent 
faithfulness — as it was his belief that they ought to do. 
The minority member was under no such handicap; his 
function, so far as it was a party one, was to watch, criticise, 
help faithfully in the public duties of the office, and to protest 
if any step was proposed that seemed unfair to the public 
or to his party. 

The business of the Board was to supervise and conduct 
all elections, appoint and control all judges and clerks of 
election, and see to it especially that all elections were honest, 
fair and legal. It was its duty, sitting with the county 
judge and the city attorney as a canvassing board of five, to 
canvass all returns from the judges and clerks of election, and 
certify all results of the election. In cases of error in returns 
or misbehavior of judges and clerks of election, these officers 
could be called in for consultation, correction or discipline. 

There were a chief clerk and many subordinates in the 
office, necessary to conduct the business, and they were, of 
course, all political appointments and made on the direction 
of the county judge, except one deputy, whose appointment 
was always, as a courtesy, accorded to the minority member, 
to represent him and his party. I appointed Mr. Samuel 
Parker, who served in this capacity during my incumbency 
of four years. He was a fair man, superior, alert, honest 
and a staunch republican. He was helpful in a large way, 



128 THE MARCHING YEARS 

and spared me a flood of annoyance and trouble that, with a 
less efficient assistant, would have been unavoidable. 

In appointing judges and clerks of election the republicans 
were allowed one of each in every precinct, so that we were 
represented in every election booth. As a practical fact the 
regular organizations of both parties, in each ward and 
district, nominated the judges and clerks for the respective 
parties, and sent the lists to our office for the confirmation 
of the Board. They were always confirmed unless some 
complaint was lodged against an individual, when the case 
was investigated and the proper action taken or attempted. 
Complaints against republican nominees were always referred 
to me for any action I deemed best; and my colleagues never 
attempted to interfere with my decisions. 

The Chicago Tribune, the leading republican newspaper, 
had from the first been a little suspicious of me as representing 
the republican party on the Board, presumptively because 
of my friendly relations with the editor of the Daily News, 
Mr. Melville E. Stone. The News was independent, and 
had opposed Blaine for President and favored Cleveland. 
The Tribune called the News a mugwump sheet, and the News 
had for a long time printed daily some item ridiculing or 
poking fun at Mr. Joseph Medill, the chief editor of the 
Tribune. Relations between the two papers were hostile, 
whether or not the editors personally were hostile at heart. 
The Tribune had interviewed me at the time of my appoint- 
ment, especially as to my republicanism, which I declared 
was so perfect that it would stand the strongest acid test, 
except as to one defection, which was the result of following 
the lead of the Tribune itself — namely, voting for Greeley for 
President in 1872. 

But there was evidence all the time in the Tribune office, 
of a wish for an excuse to knife me, both for my sake and for 
that of my friend. The occasion seemed to come in the fall 
of 1887, when a permissive law of the legislature called the 
"jury commission law" was submitted to the voters for their 



THE MARCHING YEARS 129 

confirmation or rejection. The Tribune was intensely anxious 
for a favorable vote; it was a pet measure of its editor, and 
was probably a good law which ought to have been approved 
at the polls; but it was defeated, and for this it appeared to 
be necessary to punish somebody; so the republican com- 
missioner was selected for a victim. There began then a nine 
days' war — newspaper and otherwise — of the Tribune against 
me; and of the Tribune against two or three other papers, 
chiefly the Inter-Ocean and the Daily News. The Tribune 
well illustrated the bashfulness that usually prevents editors 
from confessing their own mistakes. 

On a certain Saturday the Tribune local page truthfully 
stated that in the Canvassing Board, the day before, I had 
moved that the election judges and clerks of one or two 
precincts, whose returns were irregular, be haled before the 
Board for explanation and possible discipline; and that all 
the other members of the Board had voted against me — this 
included the county judge and the republican city attorney, 
Hempstead Washburne, afterward Mayor of the city. The 
next day, Sunday, the editorial page of this paper had a 
venomous paragraph attacking me for not having tried to do 
on Friday the very thing I had attempted, and been defeated. 

The Inter-Ocean and the Daily News were not slow to take 
advantage of the blunder in the office of the Tribune, and they 
proceeded with one of the bitterest of all unbloody weapons, 
ridicule. They used it in parallel columns and otherwise 
with smarting effect. As the Tribune could not reply to them, 
it ignored them, and bestowed its ire with new invective 
upon me. On the Saturday following there appeared in the 
Inter-Ocean an open letter on the issue from the republican 
commissioner himself, in which he paid his respects to the 
Tribune in terms that appear to have been somewhat lacking 
in elegance, but did not lack in force.* The next day, 
Sunday, there was printed on the editorial page of the Tribune 
a paragraph regarding my relations with the County Hospital, 

*See Appendix I. 



130 THE MARCHING YEARS 

of which I was one of the attending physicians, that was 
libelous against my professional character and standing. 
Then, with my attorney, Mr. J. J. Knickerbocker, I visited 
the managing editor of the paper, Mr. Robert Patterson — 
Mr. Medill was out of town and had been since before the 
trouble began. We had a quiet talk with the editor, the 
result of which was a retraction and attempt at correction 
in the paper of the next morning, on the editorial page. 
It was poorly written, to tell the exact truth, and perhaps 
that was not intended ; it was surely reluctant enough — and 
it ended the "war," so far as I was concerned; but the rival 
papers did not stop until they had made sport of the retrac- 
tion — in parallel columns and otherwise. 

Two days after this a letter came to me from the county 
judge commending my official conduct and begging me to 
accept again the burden of the commissionership and for a 
full term of three years. It inclosed a certificate from the 
clerk of the court, of my appointment to succeed myself. 
I accepted with reluctance, for I had promised myself, my 
family and friends that, being already overloaded with cares 
and work, I would not accept further public office. But 
after the "war," to have declined the appointment would 
have given the newspaper the chance to say that it drove 
me out. Moreover, the paper had fairly earned and deserved 
the privilege of seeing me in the same office for three more 
years. 

A few clippings that illustrate some sides of this "war," 
and that are illuminating of the gentle amenities between 
editors of daily papers in Chicago at that time, are printed 
in the Appendix to this volume — also correspondence with 
the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal on the hospital 
incident. 

As to the County Hospital affair, the hospital, in ad- 
dition to its normal function of taking care of the indigent 
sick without price, was, by order of the County Board, 
taking into its fine, and foolishly extravagant, rooms in the 



THE MARCHING YEARS 131 

executive building, any pay patient who cared to come and 
pay for his board and find his own doctor. I had one such 
pay patient, and of course got a fee. The Tribune — 
searching for some ground for slander — pretended to believe 
that I had violated the rules of the hospital applicable to 
paupers; and it printed a whole-cloth falsehood about my 
collecting fees and returning them. 

My experience as an election commissioner for four years 
was to me one of education, and satisfaction in serving the 
public. The actual time spent on the work was perhaps an 
average of one hour each day. Had more been required it 
would have been impossible to give it and do justice to my 
professional work, including the college and hospital duties. 
With the aid of my deputy, Mr. Parker, I was unquestionably 
able to give the office as much intelligent attention as any 
of my colleagues did. 

Only in a few instances during my first two years of ser- 
vice did differences arise between my colleagues and myself, 
and the county judge, on questions of policy where I thought 
injustice to my party might be threatened. Then, by per- 
suasion and argument and without loud talk, it was usually 
possible to have my views accepted. At times it seemed to 
me a good joke on the judge who appointed me, thinking he 
would thereby escape trouble from the minority member, for 
on several occasions he found me very troublesome. But 
at the end of about two years, to my delight he appointed for 
my democratic colleague Mr. S. S. Gregory, a superior 
lawyer and one of the most upright of men. Thereafter few 
propositions that were unfair to my party or to myself were 
offered; and none of them succeeded, and I did not need to 
protest, for Gregory was there. 

Another pleasant experience of that service was my 
acquaintance with Judge Elbert Henry Gary,* who occa- 
sionally sat in our County Court to relieve Judge Prendergast, 
and with whom the Election Commission came into official 



♦Later the head of the United States Steel Corporation. 



132 THE MARCHING YEARS 

contact. Gary lived in an adjoining county, where he was 
the county judge and held court on certain days each week. 
His law practice was mostly in Chicago, where his office was, 
and so he was easily "borrowed" for service, now and then, 
to help our overworked judge. He had studied law with 
my great and good philosopher friend, the late Judge H. H. 
Cody, and had been for a number of years his law partner. 
We found him judicial and able in mind; magnanimous 
and courteous in manner; superior and dependable always^- 
qualities that made his after-career in the business world 
both natural and logical. 

Judge Prendergast was, I believe, a true friend to me, 
and the sentiment was reciprocated. He had a mind of 
great activity and fertility. He had been elected county 
judge soon after his admission to the bar. At the end of his 
term of four years he was re-elected. As the end of his 
second term approached, he was troubled with the fear that, 
because he had been so many years out of law practice, he 
might not be able to get clients and cases enough to support 
his increasing family. He several times talked with me about 
his gloomy prospects. I was positive he would succeed, and 
told him so. I also told him more than once that he was more 
fitted for the bar than the bench. This was true, for while 
he was probably always a consciously honest one, he was too 
instinctively a partisan to be the best sort of a judge. He 
was what might be called a contesting lawyer. His mind 
was prolific in novel and unusual devices for winning tough 
law cases; and he was a man of great persistency and de- 
termination. These arts he must have used effectively, for, 
after his retirement from the bench, he opened a law office, 
and in the few years he was able to practice — before the onset 
of the disease that finally destroyed him — he gathered 
together a fortune of several hundred thousand dollars. 

The Election Commission gave me a very good insight 
into the mysteries of politics and the ways of political leaders. 
I discovered how bad some bosses of that day in Chicago 



THE MARCHING YEARS 133 

could be. The worst of them could not have been as bad 
as some of those of two or three of our coast cities; nor has 
Chicago since that time had such bad bosses. And some 
of the leaders in our local politics were among the straightest 
men I ever knew — yet they were dubbed bosses as the 
severest unactionable word to apply to them. One example 
of such a local leader was the late Mr. E. G. Keith — a man 
of the greatest probity and usefulness, who was lampooned 
by certain newspapers as a reprehensible boss. 

It was common with a certain class of critics, mostly 
men who rarely or never took the trouble to go to the polls 
and vote, to call anyone who became a leader in political 
activities, a boss. Giving the word this larger meaning, 
there always have been bosses in governments of the people, 
and there always must be ; bad bosses will always make them- 
selves felt; the vital need is to have good bosses in greater 
numbers and more cunning to foil them. And the only 
effective way to such a consummation is for more good men 
and women to study the political affairs of their communities 
and be unselfishly active in them. Such activity is always 
a school for the development of statesmanship — and for the 
discovery of both kinds of bosses. 

The badge of the bad boss is selfishness — usually sordid 
selfishness — while the good boss goes in for clean government 
and seeks the candidates who are most likely to carry the 
majorities for that purpose. The lack of such good leaders 
has too often caused to be sent to our legislatures and city 
council chambers a majority of men either disloyal to the 
interests of the public or too ignorant to study and know 
what such interests are — or both disloyal and ignorant. For 
many years Chicago has possessed a civic organization — 
sustained by a few faithful souls — whose vocation has been 
to learn the history, record and qualifications of every 
candidate for alderman, and to send a statement of their 
findings to every voter in the ward. As a result, for years 



134 THE MARCHING YEARS 

a majority of the Common Council have been fair and faith- 
ful men. 

The Pasadena Freeholders: 

In 1901, during my absence in the east, I was elected to 
a public office in Pasadena, the one elective office of my 
experience. I became one of a Board of Freeholders to frame 
a new charter for the city (and by the highest vote of any of 
the Board save one — the late Judge Willett). 

We had many sessions and framed a document that cer- 
tainly was the result of faithful work and study. When 
submitted to the voters, it was, to our surprise, adopted by 
only a very small majority. Some time before the election 
it was found that many prohibitionists opposed the new 
charter because the prohibition section was not drastic 
enough, although it was a verbatim copy of the ordinance 
under which the town had been "dry" from the beginning. 
When it was noised about that the "drys" were likely to 
defeat the charter, a lot of men who did not care a rap for it, 
or whether the city had a government, but who were ready to 
vote against the prohibitionists on any issue, came up at the 
last hour and prevented defeat. 

I never had any ambition for the honor of public office, 
either elective or appointive. The two appointive offices 
came wholly unsolicited; and the elective office in Pasadena 
came in my absence from the State, and without my knowl- 
edge or connivance. 

In later years there came from many active republicans 
in California, suggestions and invitations to enter the race 
for governor, and then later for senator, but I succeeded in 
discouraging all of them. They were looking for "available" 
candidates. I believe in citizens giving attention to politics 
in the best way, as unselfishly as possible; and in seeking to 
be elected to office — in the Abraham Lincoln way. My own 
intense preoccupation with the vocations and avocations of 
my life has prevented my giving as much attention to local 



THE MARCHING YEARS 135 

politics as my desires and real duty required. The men who 
refuse to "dabble" in politics because they discredit the 
so-called ward politicians; who refuse to go to the polls 
and vote because they either fancy the election will go right 
without them or believe it is bound to go wrong in spite of 
them, are entitled to very little sympathy in their plaint 
about the degradation of our political life. They are among 
the citizens who make corrupt politics not only possible but 
certain. (See Appendix IV.) 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CHICAGO CHARITY. 

THE Chicago Relief and Aid Society was a voluntary 
organization, chartered by the State legislature of 
Illinois in 1859, to care for the temporarily destitute 
people, not of the pauper class which is always relieved by 
the county. Its chief function was to help, over a distressful 
period of misfortune, persons and families who were usually 
self-supporting. The law required it to report its doings 
annually to the Common Council of Chicago. Naturally, its 
chief work was in the winter, when food, fuel and clothing 
were most needed. Of its rather large Board of Directors, 
nearly all were substantial and representative citizens. Dr. 
H. A. Johnson, my beloved teacher and friend, was for long 
the sole medical man on the Board. 

When the great fire of October, 1871, came, an enormous 
amount of relief work had to be done, and done in a great 
hurry, for the destitute of nearly a hundred thousand burnt- 
out people. Donations in great floods of money and materials 
began to come to the city government, from all over the 
country — and from abroad also they came, but a little later. 
Four days after the fire the Mayor wisely turned over to the 
Society the entire relief work, the handling of all money 
received, and the directing of all relief of every kind. The 
organization carried through all that colossal task with suc- 
cess and general satisfaction. The money donations were 
only a little short of $5,000,000. The disbursements were 
made with scrupulous correctness, and the relief measures 
were wise and efficient. After all necessary expenditures had 
been made, there was left a considerable surplus, which it 
was impossible to return to the donors, who were scattered 
over the world, and had given various sums from a dollar up, 
and often given in needful things instead of money. It was 

[136] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 137 

wisely determined to devote a part of this surplus to providing 
for the care of the poor of Chicago for the years to come. 
This was the advice of Dr. Johnson — and it was good advice; 
so one hundred beds were endowed in the various permanent 
hospitals of the city at $1,000 each, the Society to have the 
right to send patients to occupy these beds at any time 
without further cost. Several small donations were made to 
establish dispensaries doing service for the poor. The 
dispensaries obligated themselves to keep the funds as a 
perpetual endowment, only the interest to be used from year 
to year, and that used faithfully to treat the sick poor. Of 
these gifts, the Herrick Free Dispensary received $5,000. 
The Herrick was founded in 1871, after the fire, primarily 
to care for the burnt-out people. It was, in 1873, with its 
property and contracts, united with the Central Free Dis- 
pensary, under the latter name. The Central had received 
$4,000 from the relief fund. Rooms for the dispensary were 
provided in the new Rush College building in 1876. A long 
time ago I gave several years of service as a regular attendant 
on this dispensary, and gathered a lot of useful knowledge 
in human nature, as well as in the study and treatment of the 
sick. 

The medical relief was managed by a committee, of which 
Dr. Johnson was chairman; arfd well did it do its work. My 
modest contribution was to serve as an attendant at the 
temporary hospital built by the Society at the corner of 
Harrison Street and Center (now Racine) Avenue, where 
many patients were cared for who could not be admitted to 
the hospitals of the city. This was in the fall and winter of 
1871. 

The fire was a greater calamity than most people supposed. 
More than 2,124 acres of the thickly built city were burnt 
over, and the loss in values could not be known, but was 
probably $200,000,000. Many people were destroyed; how 
many is not known, but one historian in a magazine article 
a few years ago wrote that in that fire not a life was lost — 



138 THE MARCHING YEARS 

and he thought it a remarkable statement to be able to make. 
It was a remarkable statement, especially as I recorded in 
my diary three days after the fire, that I had that day seen 
in a building on Milwaukee Avenue, where the dead were 
gathered by the city forces, sixty-two bodies, most of them 
burned or otherwise disfigured beyond the possibility of 
identification. Few of them were ever claimed by their 
friends. 

Dr. Johnson had always given much time and thought 
to the work of the Society. In 1885 he asked to be relieved 
of the burden, and that I be appointed in his place. I re- 
garded this as a great compliment from him, as it was an 
honor to serve the Society. I continued a director until 1891, 
when I was banished to California. 

This long experience was instructive in many ways, 
especially in the study of poverty of manifold forms; of the 
best and safest methods of relief; of the bad effect on weak 
people of indiscriminate and too free giving; of the discretion 
required to give needed help to the most worthy unfortunates, 
and to avoid wounding their commendable feelings of self- 
respect and pride; and finally in the study of sad cases of 
noble souls in want, and too humiliated and crushed to ask 
for relief — facing starvation like the stoics that they were. 

So many impostors, professional beggars, and brazen, 
unworthy persons were constantly applying for help, that I 
am sure the Superintendent and his helpers had to struggle 
against the impulse to regard every applicant as an impostor. 
That is the experience of every such organization doing similar 
work in a metropolitan city. It is sad to see an almoner so 
impressed by the frauds that he is gruff to the worthy poor; 
and it is ruinous to the system if he is so soft and trusting as 
to be easily imposed upon. His work in such a society as 
this is always difficult; it requires the highest degree of 
common sense, great-heartedness, uniform courtesy, and a 
smiling, firm purpose to distinguish between the worthy and 



THE MARCHING YEARS 139 

unworthy, and to weigh well where the benefit of the doubt 
belongs. 

Our funds were acquired mostly by donations from the few 
people who were able to give, and were moved to help in this 
sort of charity. Never was enough collected for the really 
urgent needs of the service. Most of the members of the 
Board were deeply engrossed in their own affairs, and few 
could or did give time to importune their friends for money 
for this need. Probably others besides myself found this an 
irksome task. 

Throughout my service it seemed to me that the Society 
succeeded as well as it could with the funds at its disposal, 
in carrying relief to the right people and in the best way. 
The cost of investigating every case asking for relief was 
sometimes complained of, but this was necessary in order to 
avoid creating mendicancy, and to encourage people to stand 
on their own feet as soon and as far as possible. 

There were several other charity bodies in the city, and 
more or less overlapping of relief was unavoidable. This is 
always demoralizing to the best system of charity for a great 
city, the aim of which should be to do good always or nearly 
always, and never to do harm. The proposition to unite 
all these agencies into one general charity organization for the 
whole city had been agitated for a long time; and this was 
finally accomplished a few years after the end of my service. 
The Chicago Relief and Aid Society thus went out of existence 
as such, and closed a useful career of half a century. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CHICAGO. 

MY professional shingle was hung out from three suc- 
cessive offices on West Madison Street, in each of 
which I slept at night on a "disappearing" bed, and 
was my own janitor. The last of these locations was at the 
corner of Peoria Street in the Thompson Block. Dr. A. H. 
Foster officed with me, and my association with him was 
a great comfort, for he was a man of superior mentality, a 
good practitioner, a true and lifelong friend. A unique bond 
of sympathy existed between us in the slowness with which 
the public discovered us as doctors. Probably we both had 
too much uncompromising bluffness, to begin with. I 
envied him his family of a wife and children, to whom he was 
in a special manner devoted. Foster was six years my 
senior, but had pink cheeks and a young look. He enjoyed 
telling how in my absence some patient of mine had refused 
his proffered services, remarking that he would wait for the 
"old doctor." 

We were at the Peoria Street place when the fire of 1871 
occurred.* We gave office hours temporarily to two doc- 
tor friends who had been burned out, Charles Gilman 
Smith and R. C. Bogue. The former was one of the most 
popular physicians of the city; he had hosts of friends and 
patients, and deserved them all. He was then a bachelor, 
past the age when men usually marry, and had become the 
despair of many interested matrons. A few years later, how- 
ever, he married a brilliant woman of mature years, a widow 
with a grown-up daughter; and it was a happy marriage. 
He was something of a wag, but a wag with sentiment, for 



*The next year after the great fire my office was moved to the house, No. 267 
West Monroe Street, where it remained until it went to 64 Throop Street early in 
1874, at the time of my marriage. 



[140] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 141 

he once told us how, after traveling over Europe, and coming 
back to Liverpool to set sail for home, he shed tears on seeing 
the American flag. Dr. Bogue was one of the faithful sur- 
geons of the County Hospital. From this time he and his 
family were among my warmest friends. 

I had been engaged to Miss Mae Manford for many 
months, waiting for my professional income to grow to the 
dimensions necessary for two persons with frugal tastes to 
live on. After the great fire I was for a time one of the small- 
pox inspectors for the health department of the city, and 
was receiving a very moderate compensation. It was my duty 
to examine cases of suspected smallpox, and, if found to be 
genuine, to report them for the smallpox hospital, and after- 
ward to vaccinate persons known to have been exposed to 
the infection, and to fumigate the premises. If a person so 
sent to the pest-house turned out not to be a genuine case, 
it was bad for the inspector. It was my good fortune to 
escape such a calamity, for I played safe; if there was any 
doubt of the diagnosis, I called the chief inspector and 
divided the responsibility with him. 

The fumigation was supposed to destroy all germs of 
the disease in the house, but we are now positive that it did 
no good whatever, except to give the people concerned a 
precious sense of security. The materials used were a certain 
form of lime and some crude carbolic acid, put together on a 
dinner plate, set on the floor in the middle of the room to 
be fumigated. The mixture sizzled and smudged, and sent 
forth a detestable odor that filled the house, went into 
the street, and was remembered afterward with horror. 

How much money I got for this work is entirely forgotten, 
but I recall that it just paid for a very modest engagement 
ring — a fact which amused us, both. My income was not 
sufficient for us when we were married on May 21, 1874, and 
began boarding at 64 Throop Street, whither my office had 
been moved. 



142 THE MARCHING YEARS 

The next year, December 30, 1875, we set up house- 
keeping at 81 Throop Street, in a rented house owned by a 
friend who could afford to trust us for the rent, and this he 
had to do for long periods of time. It was during those 
months that our financial struggle was most severe. I 
remember saying to my wife at the time that if we could have 
twenty-five thousand dollars I would willingly sign an obliga- 
tion never to possess any more. Of course it was a foolish 
speech to make; and it was a long, long day before we had 
that amount of property; not until after my breakdown in 
health, when my earning days seemed to be over. 

We were happy in our first housekeeping home. Living 
with us in those days was a widowed aunt of my wife, whom 
we loved as a mother — Mrs. Emily Morse. To us she was 
always "Aunt Em." She was a superior personality, and 
was great company and strength for us. She was a member 
of our family until her death.* 

I can think of nothing much worse for a physician than 
to have a wife with extravagant tastes, or with a disposition 
to gossip with others about his patients. The fact that 
Mrs. Bridge was wholly free from such weaknesses made it 
much easier to bear professional burdens that multiplied fast 
enough as time went on. Through the years she was inter- 
rogated hundreds of times by neighbors and friends — and 
sometimes by total strangers — as to the affairs and diseases 
of my patients, and especially as to what I thought and said 
about them. Her answer was almost invariably to the effect 
that her husband never talked to her about his patients. 
She had inherited sense and caution from her forbears, and 
had improved on both. Her father was the Rev. Erasmus 
Manford, and her mother Hannah Bryant Manford. They 
were from frugal, hard-working, thoughtful families. To- 
gether they published the Manford' s Magazine, a religious 
monthly in the interest of the Universalist faith. The 
daughter was an only child, a fact she always lamented. She 

*September 30, 1879. 



THE MARCHING YEARS' 143 

had been graduated from the Normal Department of the 
Chicago High School in 1867 and had taught in the Dore 
School for three years. 

Frugal and faithful, we struggled on, and by 1881 had 
paid our debts, and were accumulating enough to lead us to 
think of having a home of our own. During all these early 
years I had numerous warm friends, but somehow when they 
fell sick those who had money usually went to some other 
practitioner. People would even come and ask me to tell 
them of a good doctor for a particular disorder, saying they 
knew they could trust my candor and judgment to steer 
them right. All this was very amusing, and in a way 
flattering, but it did not pay the rent nor the grocer. 
We tried to believe our slow growth of fortune was good for 
discipline; it certainly was discipline. 

I had been in practice quite seven years before being able 
to afford a horse to carry me about. In seven years more two 
horses were required — and this continued until the failure 
of my health in the winter of 1890-91. 

The streets of Chicago in that day were mostly unpaved, 
rough — especially in the winter — and in a wet time very 
disagreeable. I tried various experiments in vehicles to make 
riding less of a punishment when driving over a rough road. 
My friend Dr. Wadsworth had a one-horse chaise that he was 
greatly attached to for the apparently incredible reason that 
it was an easy-riding affair. It had no springs except the 
wood framework, within which the body of the vehicle was 
suspended by long, inelastic straps of leather, called thorough- 
braces. Once I rode with him in the chaise and found it 
actually free from discomfort when moving rapidly over 
rough streets. This gave me an ambition to see the thorough- 
brace idea applied to an ordinary buggy, and I had a vehicle 
designed and built for this purpose. It had both springs and 
short thoroughbraces to support the body of the vehicle; but 
it was only a moderate success — nothing comparable to the 
chaise. It succeeded in attracting the attention of our 



144 ' THE MARCHING YEARS 

neighbors as evidence of some possible mental weakness on 
the part of the owner. 

In the second decade of the new century the doctors of 
Chicago were riding about in their inclosed automobiles over 
hundreds of miles of well paved streets, in the pride of com- 
fort undreamed of in the days of my beginnings. What a 
change — and what a contrast! 

In the fall of 1883, October 10, we moved into the house 
that we had built at 550 West Jackson Street, near Ashland. 
It was at least our house, barring a mortgage which fortu- 
nately was soon afterward paid off. It was a two-story and 
basement brick structure, with rooms for a doctor's office in 
the front of the basement, the kitchen and dining room being 
further back. The house was built by an architect who had 
erratic ideas of heating and ventilation. He provided ab- 
surdly large pipes and furnace (sufficient for a metropolitan 
church), all of which in a year or two we discarded. In 
their place we installed a steam heating apparatus, having 
built on an addition to receive the boiler. The house was 
built to last centuries, and I freely declared that it was our 
permanent home, and that I expected to die there. But in 
seven years I found myself touched with what appeared to be 
a mortal blight of pulmonary tuberculosis, and, early in 1891, 
got out of the house and to California as fast as possible.* 
Mrs. Bridge and her mother, who a few years after the death 
of her husband in 1884, had come to make her home with us 
permanently, came to California in May, and we never went 
back to the Chicago house again. In a few months it was 
sold to another physician. 



*For two or three years I had had frequent "colds" with cough and occasional slight 
blood spitting. It became apparent in 1890 that I must reduce my burdens of work. 
My term as election commissioner would end late in the fall, and so bring some relief. 
I determined to open an office in the down-town district, and cease to see patients at 
my house or visit so many at their homes. An office was found at the corner of La 
Salle and Madison Streets (where the Hotel La Salle now stands), and after a vacation 
trip to Las Vegas Hot Springs with my friend Prof. Walter Haines the office was fitted 
up and occupied— but only a few weeks, for the day after Christmas my "blight" 
was discovered by myself, with the help of my own microscope. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 145 

As places to migrate to, in the hope of recovery from 
pulmonary tuberculosis, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico 
had better reputations than southern California. But the 
last had a good reputation, and it offered the elements of 
climate that seemed to me then, and have increasingly seemed 
to me since, to offer most hope of recovery in such cases — 
namely, such elements as make it possible to live an outdoor 
life comfortably at all seasons of the year. There is nothing 
medicinal in any climate; the same atmosphere surrounds the 
earth; but conditions that favor outdoor living are the best. 
High altitude has little value over sea level, except for an 
occasional case; and may be harmful as compared with the 
lower levels for more cases than it specially helps. Very 
dry climates are good for cases of profuse expectoration, 
since the dryness reduces the amount of the watery element 
of the phlegm, and so lessens the labor of coughing. 

I had visited California in winter twice already; had 
many friends and acquaintances there; and it was natural to 
elect Los Angeles County as the place of sojourn. 

My first trip was taken in February, 1882, with my 
friend and colleague, Prof. Walter Haines, his mother and 
our mutual friend, Frank Tobey; the second one, six years 
later, with Mrs. Bridge, Mr. and Mrs. M. E. Stone and 
daughter, and Mr. and Mrs. Yaggy with their two sons, all 
of Chicago. The occasion of the first trip was the precarious 
health of Prof. Haines. He was slowly recovering from a 
severe chest disease, and consented to go to Los Angeles if 
his mother could go with him, sufficiently attended — so Tobey 
and I went along. We traveled over the Santa Fe Railroad 
to Deming, New Mexico, thence by the Southern Pacific 
(the Santa Fe line was not yet built west from Albuquerque 
by way of Needles, Barstow and San Bernardino). 

We found Los Angeles a little city of, say, 13,000 people, 
with wonderful weather, wholly unpaved streets — dusty or 
muddy according to the weather ; and with unwarmed houses. 
It was impossible to locate the invalid and his mother in a 



146 THE MARCHING YEARS 

house where both could be comfortable in a cold day, even 
in that mild climate. We could not learn of a single house in 
the city that had means of heating all of its rooms, including 
bathroom, except by gas or kerosene stoves, the products of 
whose combustion went into the rooms and not through 
flues and out of doors. Beyond these facilities, there was 
hardly a house that had more than a kitchen stove and one 
fireplace in a living room — and these usually discharged into 
the one chimney of the house, an arrangement which made 
no provision for bedrooms. We found a boarding place for 
the invalid in a house with a fireplace in the parlor, but no 
heat in any bedroom. His mother had to stay in a house 
two long blocks away, and her room had only a kerosene 
stove in the center of the floor for evening heat; the sun 
furnished her needful heat in the daytimes on cloudless days. 

The people who had come even from the northern states, 
and settled here, seemed to have become possessed of a notion 
that, as the country was called semi-tropical, it must be 
impossible that one needed a fire in his house at any time — 
in spite of the experience of the world generally that a tem- 
perature between 30° and 40° F. is one of the most disagreeable, 
especially if there is a wind. 

We drove to Pasadena and saw a few scattered houses 
and unfinished streets of the future city of beauty and com- 
fort; and we went out to the Sierra Madre Villa, a mile west 
of what was later the village of Sierra Madre. The villa was 
a green spot in the view of the San Gabriel Valley — made green 
by a grove of orange trees on a hillside, surmounted by a 
rambling white frame inn with a grass lawn in front of it. 

Tobey and I soon left our friends at Los Angeles and 
went to San Francisco, stopping at the Baldwin Hotel — after- 
wards burned to the ground, and not rebuilt. E. J., better 
known as Lucky, Baldwin, was the proprietor, and the cashier 
was a handsome fellow by the name of Unruh, with whom I 
was fated ten years later to have a legal tussle when he was 
Baldwin's agent near Sierra Madre. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 147 

Tobey and I were seized with a desire to go to the Yose- 
mite Valley. We were thought to be lunatics to think of 
such a thing in winter. But the Stage Company, which took 
people to the Valley, told us they would take us in if we 
cared to go, and would promise not to growl at minor dis- 
comforts and delays. The snow was liable to be deep on the 
top of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and if a very heavy 
fall of it came, we might have to come out on snowshoes. 

We took a night train to Merced, arriving in the morning; 
took there a stage to Mariposa, where we stopped for the 
night. Next morning we drove to Cold Springs, where we 
struck the snow, and had to contract our luggage, get sad- 
dles and mount the horses. We wallowed through deep 
snow to Clark Station,* which we reached after dark. All 
the next day we spent riding through deeper snow six miles 
to the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias, and back. The big 
trees are a moderate curiosity only; among other very large 
trees they look less impressive than you expect them to. 
The next day we rode to the top of the mountains, preceded 
by a four-horse team hitched to a heavy sled, with two men, 
as road breakers. Here was a Stage Company station with 
two custodians. They entertained us with supper, lodging and 
breakfast. They fed us sumptuously, regaled us with yarns 
of the mountains in the evening, and gave us to sleep on 
the floor with our clothes on, and our feet towards the fire.f 

The following day (preceded by our convoy 1 we reached 
the Valley, before noon. In two days we were on the way out 
of the Valley. In that time we had rested ourselves and our 
horses, had ascended to a moderate height the Columbia 
Trail, the only one that was open; we had seen many of the 
sights; had heard the echoing detonation of huge masses of 
ice falling from the top of the Yosemite Falls to the rocks 
500 feet below; we had seen a greenish blue, sunlight illumi- 
nated cathedral of colossal icicles at the Bridal Veil Falls— 



*Since named, I think, Wawona. 

tSee the author's book "Fragments and Addresses" on this topic. 



148 THE MARCHING YEARS 

and we had eaten a turkey dinner and drunk the champagne 
of Hotel Leidig on Washington's birthday anniversary. 

This trip was spiced with several minor circumstances. 
Tobey was giddy, or thought he was, on the heights of the 
Columbia Trail, especially when he looked down the declivity; 
then he would give a thousand dollars to be back on the floor 
of the Valley; and he longed for a canoe on the waters of 
Cape Cod, which he said had never frightened him, however 
rough the waves. But he was really a good sport, and after- 
wards laughed over his peculiar sensibilities. 

When we were about to start on this trip from San 
Francisco a debilitated looking Quaker from the east, who 
was on his wedding trip, asked to join our party with his 
wife, and we were agreeable. She was a gentle, pleasing 
personality, while he was a protestant by nature, made worse, 
evidently, by his poor health. Throughout the journey he 
found abundant things to object to and complain about, and 
virtually nothing to approve or commend. This attitude 
led Tobey and me to exclaim the more at the beauties and 
wonders, and to excuse the delays and hardships. When the 
amazing glories of Inspiration Point flashed upon us, the man 
insisted on telling us of the superior beauties of a place 
in New York called Watkins Glen. On the morning we 
started from Clark's for the mountain top his wife was too 
fatigued to go farther, and remained at the hotel until our 
return, five days later. The previous presence of his wife 
must have exercised some restraint upon him, for now that 
she was absent his complaints grew more rash and irritating, 
and they were nearly all directed toward our guide, who was 
a patient, faithful fellow by the name of Joe. But there 
was a limit, and once or twice the guide retorted in a 
proper manner — which made the fellow more voluble in his 
insulting talk. 

We were riding tandem, coming out of the Valley, when 
a climax occurred. The guide was ahead, Tobey next, then 
myself and the Quaker behind me. He was keeping up his 



THE MARCHING YEARS 149 

loud talk against the guide, whom he held responsible for all 
the sins, real and supposititious, of the Stage Company; and 
he took out of his hip pocket a pistol, which he not only dis- 
played, but talked about as being in prime condition. Then 
the guide got off his horse, and walked back, saying, "Mr. 

, this has gone far enough." It was evident that 

an ugly fight was imminent; and in a spurt of impulsiveness I 
roared at the guide: "What's the matter with you, Joe? 
Don't you know that fellow is an irresponsible boy? You 
are too big a man to mind what he says. Get on to your horse 
and go ahead." This ended the incident, and we journeyed 
on in relative silence. The pistol disappeared, and the 
growling ceased, but I have a suspicion that afterward the 
man did not like me. That was bearable, but it was sad to 
see his expectant, beautiful wife, who had been sick in his 
absence, greet him; to see him glum, with a few perfunctory 
words and not a smile or any word about the wonders he 
had seen. 

We rode the horses down to our stagecoach, all the way 
pitying the poor animals for the terrific hardships we had 
imposed upon them. When they were hitched to the stage 
and we started down the hill out of the snow, they kicked up 
their heels and squealed with glee. No human speech was 
ever more intelligible or eloquent. Tobey and I returned to 
Los Angeles, and soon started for home by the way of Colo- 
rado Springs, Manitou and Denver. 

The second California trip was early in the year 1888. 
The great boom in real estate that had kept all southern 
California agog for several years had just stopped suddenly, 
and a large part of the business of the community had fallen 
flat. The change affected Los Angeles, Pasadena and San 
Diego severely. 

Pasadena had had great expectations, especially for its 
famous Orange Grove Avenue. Here the street was all torn 
up, to be widened; the curbs were being moved back several 
feet, to make an avenue worthy of the City of Ambition for 



150 THE MARCHING YEARS 

the future. This wide street was maintained for over twenty 
years with a sort of macadam that was dusty and muddy by 
spells; and in the later years the automobiles sucked up the 
dust and threw it into clouds, to be blown into the dwellings. 
Then the street was again torn up, the curbs brought toward 
the center, the grass plots made wider, and the street returned 
to its original width; and it was given an asphalt pavement. 

We went to Santa Barbara, stopping at the Arlington 
Hotel. On the evening of our arrival the illuminating gas 
had an intensely unpleasant odor. We were told that this 
happened frequently; that complaints had been made again 
and again, with only a brief little improvement after each 
complaint. The next morning the hotel manager asked me 
to go with him to the gas works and try to get permanent 
relief from this nuisance. He evidently thought me an 
expert in such matters. I denied having any special knowl- 
edge of gas making. He smiled, apologized profusely for 
imposing on me when on a much deserved vacation, and 
again begged me to help him. He talked as a polite gentle- 
man does to a friend he suspects of prevarication. Plainly 
he took no stock in my protestations of ignorance — plainly, 
also, Stone and Yaggy had started his scheme; had told him 
that I could certainly help him, and that he must expect my 
protestations, but not to listen to them seriously. I thought 
I saw through the plot, consented and rode away with him. 

The only fact I knew bearing on the problem was that 
lime in some form was sometimes used to deodorize gas, and 
on this slender basis, and with a great deal of politeness and 
thankfulness to the gas man, and profuse apologies for 
bothering him, and a disavowal of any wish for any secrets 
he might have, I succeeded in making successfully one of the 
most audacious bluffs ever perpetrated by an ignoramus. 
And finally, I shook hands with him and bowed myself out, 
without giving him a chance to ask me a single question 
vital to the business. Had he asked me one such I should 
have been lost. To my tentative and cautious questioning he 



THE MARCHING YEARS 151 

confessed that he used lime in the process ; told me the amount 
used for each thousand feet of gas; agreed that it was hardly 
enough; gave me the amount of his production, and the 
amount of additional lime necessary to make a perfect 
product, and what this would cost, and finally admitted that 
if the product was good, the town ought to and probably 
would take enough more gas to make the profit far greater 
than the price of the additional lime. Three years afterwards 
when I went to Santa Barbara sick, this hotelkeeper told me 
that from the day of our visit to the gas works the gas had 
been continuously perfect. I have often wondered whether 
he thought I had told him the truth about my ignorance, or 
had fibbed to him, and was really as wise to the business as 
the gas man evidently thought me. 

At Santa Barbara I found my friend and former patient, 
Charles Dwight Willard, whom I had driven out of Chicago 
a year or two before in the hope of saving his life. He had 
improved so much as to be able to do a little journalistic 
work, and was hopeful and courageous. He was destined to 
struggle against his infirmity and work on for more than 
twenty years, a vital factor in the intellectual, civic and 
industrial life of southern California, and to die there missed 
by a large group of loving people. 

Later, when I went to California on my journey of banish- 
ment in 1891, Willard was in Los Angeles, looking well; 
and on seeing me and learning of my mission, he laughed 
explosively, because, as he said, he had rebelled against 
leaving Chicago on my insistence, and now I had been com- 
pelled to take my own medicine. When Mrs. Bridge came 
in May of that year, Miss Mary McGregor came with her, 
and, two days later, she and Willard were married in our 
house. 

It was on this second journey to California that I was 
so pleased with the balmy, bracing climate that I jocularly 
said to my traveling companions one day that I should like 
to be just sick enough sometime to be compelled to come 



152 THE MARCHING YEARS 

to California to live. In less than three years that wish, 
whether wise or wicked, was granted, and I was living among 
the scenes of delight. Dropping then my professional work, 
becoming perhaps a permanent invalid and going away, was 
so awful a punishment that it would have taken only a 
moderate streak of superstition to make it appear to be a just 
infliction for a sinful speech. But even a clinched superstition 
could not for long have withstood the glory of that winter 
sunshine and my returning health. 

At the time of this second visit Stone was still editor of 
the Chicago Daily News, on which as a regular writer was 
our friend, that erratic genius, Eugene Field. While on our 
journey we received several of his inimitable drawings, whose 
wit was directed at our search for pleasure. One of these 
was labeled: "Dr. Bridge Enjoys a Quiet Night's Rest in 
Los Angeles." It showed a bewhiskered fellow lying upon 
his back on a mattress, on the floor, just awakened in terror 
at a colossal spider that was letting itself down by its thread, 
and dangling a foot above his head. The picture was a 
pencil drawing, a fair likeness, and the terror shown by the 
face and hands was vivid and artistic. It is much to be 
regretted that this picture was lost. Another drawing he 
sent to Stone represented three little skeleton-lined figures 
running away from a colossal bug — and the bug as tall as 
the figures. That drawing I have preserved. It is inscribed : 
"Mr. Stone, Dr. Bridge and Deacon Yaggy Enjoyed Them- 
selves in Southern California. ' ' 



CHAPTER XV. 

CALIFORNIA. 

ONCE in the new land, and free from the cares and 
worries of my incessant treadmill, I began to improve. 
Even before Mrs. Bridge arrived we had determined to 
make our home in the village of Sierra Madre. I had boarded 
there almost from the time of my arrival; it seemed a fairy 
spot of romance to us, and we soon began to make plans for 
a new house. This was built and ready for occupancy about 
Thanksgiving time of that year. It was a two-story frame 
structure, lighted by gas made from gasoline by an auto- 
matic machine in the barn, and heated by a hot water 
system. The plan was designed by Mrs. Bridge, whose 
talent in this direction was destined to develop several 
subsequent houses, which we built or built over — one in 
Pasadena, one near Beverly Hills for a country house, and 
two in Los Angeles, one for ourselves and one for employes. 

The lack of house heat for winter in southern California 
had impressed us as a great and unnecessary hardship for 
both the sick and the well ; and we determined that this fault 
should not obtain in any house we built. Visitors were 
going back east in numbers every spring, and telling about 
the coldness of the dwellings, the boarding houses and hotels. 

Two years afterward Eugene Field had some expe- 
riences of cold rooms and halls in Los Angeles and San 
Francisco, and went back and rang all sorts of changes on 
the frigidness of California in winter — and he probably had 
not seen snow or ice out of doors while he was there. The 
next fall when I returned to Chicago for my lectures, he 
promptly inserted a paragraph in his column in the news- 
paper to the effect that I had just arrived from California 
ostensibly to deliver some lectures in Rush College, but 
really for the purpose of getting warm. 

[153] 



154 THE MARCHING YEARS 

Although Field was in poor health when he came to Cali- 
fornia, nothing could repress his spontaneity and lawlessness 
of humor. The day of his arrival he came to my office, and 
after salutations were over he noticed the framed picture of 
Melville Stone hanging over my desk, and wrote his own name 
on a slip of paper and pasted it at the bottom of the picture. 
He knew Stone was expected to arrive in a few days and 
would discover this theft of his personality; he did not come, 
but many people afterward seeing the label, expressed sur- 
prise that Eugene Field looked like that. After Field's 
death that slip of paper was removed, and is preserved with 
other relics of the man. 

He came to my office another time, and brought his friend 
and traveling companion, Leigh Lynch. Learning from my 
secretary that there was a lady patient in my consulting 
room, he sat down close to the door of the latter, and in his 
loud sonorous voice, that would have gone through a stone 
wall, said to the secretary: "So you say Dr. Bridge has always 
treated you like a gentleman, do you? Well, you're the first 
woman he ever treated in that way." 

Field and Lynch wanted to see the Public Library. I 
took them over and introduced them to the librarian, Miss 
Kelso, in her office. She had with her other guests, and 
we all sat down and chatted a few minutes. Then Field 
recited some of his poems for our edification. Soon a demure 
library assistant entered the room for a book, when Field 
instantly broke out with: "Well, if you think we must 
cut down the salaries of this force of people, I suppose we 
shall have to agree to it — but only a cut of ten per cent, not 
a penny more." The girl supposed we were a new Library 
Board. She rushed out of the room and in five minutes 
every assistant in the library was in tears or anger over the 
cut in her salary. In ten minutes another assistant entered 
the room, and Field declaimed: "No, gentlemen, I refuse to 
agree to any reduction in the salaries of these women. They 
are low enough already." The girl brightened, hurriedly left 



THE MARCHING YEARS 155 

the room, and told her fellows that the tide had turned, and 
that their salaries were not to be disturbed. 

At a subsequent time at a hotel in Chicago, when Field, 
Stone, Edgar C. Bradley and I entered a descending elevator, 
we found two passengers already there. They were elderly 
women, both over-dressed and over-decorated. Field looked 
at them and instantly became roguish. He turned to me and 
said in a carrying undertone: "Doctor, I don't think that is a 
case of true smallpox. I believe it's only varioloid." The 
ladies gave a gentle shriek to the elevator man to stop the 
car quick — which he did at the next landing, and they rushed 
out precipitately. 

Our Sierra Madre house was on a square of nearly an 
acre of land, situated high in the village, near the Sierra 
Madre mountains, and overlooking the town, the San Gabriel 
Valley, and the city of Pasadena, six miles to the west. It 
was a glorious view and a glorious vision. While the house 
was building we lived comfortably next door, with the assist- 
ance of a talented and faithful Chinese cook yclept Ah Gipp, 
who continued thereafter to serve us for nine years. 

In Sierra Madre we had our first real joy of a garden. 
We planted fruit and ornamental trees, shrubs and flowers in 
profusion, altogether some hundreds of them, and were 
acquainted with and nursed every one of the expanding things. 
It was a continuing pleasure through the three years of our 
residence there. 

I had opened an office in Los Angeles, and traveled to it 
by rail daily except Sundays. At first it was a diversion, 
and furnished amusement; later on, some patients began to 
come, and there was more or less practice in Sierra Madre 
and Pasadena. We enjoyed the life in Sierra Madre greatly. 
We had for neighbors some of the choicest people, most of 
whom lived in a simple and unostentatious way that was 
comforting to our nerves. 

In August, '92, Dr. Walter Haines was coming from Chicago 
to see us and to have a little vacation himself. It was arranged 



156 THE MARCHING YEARS 

that I, with General Henry C. Corbin, the Adjutant General of 
the Western Department of the Army, stationed at Los 
Angeles, should meet him at Flagstaff, Arizona, and all go 
to the Grand Cafion of the Colorado. We met there on 
August 20, and the next day rode in a wagon seventy miles 
to the rim, arriving in the evening. We slept in a tent, and 
next day made such an inspection of the wonders as we could 
by 11 o'clock, when we were obliged to start back. We 
walked down a trail for half a mile, and made no attempt to 
go farther. Corbin characterized the sight as terribly — not 
beautifully — awful; and we agreed with him. In three days 
we were all back in southern California. 

After our first year in Sierra Madre I became the presi- 
dent of the water company of the village, and soon found 
that we had on our hands a dispute over water rights and 
business with our near neighbor at Santa Anita, "Lucky 
Baldwin." Three lawsuits grew out of it, all of which were 
finally decided in favor of the company. The business was 
annoying to me and to us all; and the success of the suits 
seemed only part compensation for the trouble; but the 
experience in life, in the law, in courts and in human nature 
probably were sufficient reward for all our efforts. 

It was on arrival from the Grand Canon with Dr. Haines 
that I was taken at once to our waterworks, where I smashed 
the water pipe that Baldwin's agent had surreptitiously in- 
stalled to appropriate the water from our tunnel. It was 
for this act that the agent sought to have me arrested — 
further described in another chapter. 

Some curious fictions grew up in connection with my 
sickness and journey to California. I did not appear to be 
very ill, but left soon after my disease was known. I had to 
go, for, having advised some hundreds of people to run away 
from Chicago the moment they found they had the pul- 
monary form of the disease, it was impossible to escape 
taking my own advice. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 157 

A certain Irishman, whom I barely knew by sight, lived 
in Sierra Madre. He conducted people up the mountain 
trails by horse- or burro-back. He was a good-hearted fellow, 
and entertained his patrons by tales about the mountains and 
the people he knew. He found that the bigger the story the 
louder his hearers exclaimed; and some of his tales grew from 
month to month, and spread far and wide wherever the story 
of those mountains was recited. He frequently entertained 
acquaintances of mine from the east who would inquire if 
he knew me. "Sure, I know him. I helped take him off 
the train on a stretcher when he arrived in this country." 
When asked if I had got better he would reply, "He 
did. It was the climate and whiskey that did it. " Did they 
ask if I drank much whiskey, he would tell how he had cared 
for me in a tent in the mountains, and of seeing me drink 
a half pint of whiskey daily. The diurnal portion grew as 
this story was repeated ; and the last edition that we heard of 
made the amount a full quart. 

If our Irish friend had been charged with romancing he 
probably would have asked if it wasn't known all over the 
village that I took two or three eggnogs each day — and didn't 
such things always contain liquor? That would have been 
a true story for the first year, after which this delectable and 
nourishing beverage was omitted altogether. Each nog con- 
tained two teaspoonfuls of liquor, and was made specially 
by Ah Gipp with great precision. Those eggnogs became 
notorious, if not famous, by the correspondence of the first 
Mayor Harrison, who came to see me in those early months. 
He drank one of my nogs at the California Club, and after- 
ward wrote home to his own newspaper, the Chicago Times, 
that you could ask at any bar in southern California for a 
"Bridge eggnog" and get the correct mixture. 

My resort to this form of food for invalids who are unable 
to eat solid foods, but can drink liquid ones, brought me a lot 
of gentle chaffing; it also once, in the city of Stockton, brought 
an amusing compliment. At the Yosemite Hotel I had been 



158 THE MARCHING YEARS 

trying without success to eat a dinner that perhaps was 
good enough for a well man, but repulsive to me. Failing in 
this, I went to the hotel bar and asked for an eggnog. The 
bartender did not know how to make such a thing, and had 
neither eggs nor milk. I coaxed him to get the materials of the 
hotel steward, and then gave him minute directions how to 
proceed. In the midst of his manipulations he raised his 
smiling face to me, and said: "I see, you have been a bar- 
tender in your day." 

That compliment reminds me of one that, many years 
afterward, came to my neighbor and friend, Sprague, and my- 
self. Wm. E. Curtis, the correspondent of the Chicago 
Daily News, was in southern California. He wrote a letter 
to his paper every day. One day he was short on facts, and 
proceeded to pay his respects to some of his Chicago friends 
who were sojourning there. Mr. Andrew McNally lived in 
Altadena winters, and owned a large ranch at La Mirada, 
some miles south of Los Angeles. At the latter place he had 
bored a deep well for artesian water, and got none. But, 
according to the report of Curtis, he did strike a veritable 
vein of ripe old whiskey, and reported the same to his neigh- 
bors, who doubted it, and asked for positive proof. To sat- 
isfy everybody McNally summoned several of his Chicago 
friends and his neighbors to come on a certain day and test 
the product of the well. "Among his guests were O. S. A. 
Sprague and Norman Bridge." The verdict of the company 
was that the product of the well was whiskey of a fine quality. 
And McNally then and there declared that he would im- 
mediately start another well in the hope of finding a flow of 
mint juleps. Mr. Sprague and I first knew of the story 
through the newspapers. 

By the end of three years from our settlement in Sierra 
Madre I was nearly recovered, and my practice in Pasadena 
and Los Angeles had increased so much that the labor of 
attending to it made it necessary to move nearer. So we 
built a house in Pasadena at 100 South Grand Avenue, and 



THE MARCHING YEARS 159 

moved into it in August, 1894. It was a two-story, nine- 
room frame house with a high attic. It was on a half acre 
lot, and here we made another garden, this time altogether 
ornamental. Within a year we found that the house needed 
to be enlarged, and soon began to plan additions to it. During 
the next half dozen years we made no less than five such suc- 
cessive changes in the building. Some were large, and some 
small, a few were for esthetic effect, most of them added 
greatly to the livableness of the home — all increased its 
attractiveness, and all bore evidence of the artistic taste 
and domestic skill of the designer. 

The house was heated by a hot water system, the boiler 
being in the basement; it burned petroleum distillate, fed 
to it by a pipe from a high tank in the back yard. The 
new-fangled burner with which it was equipped made a 
roaring sound all over the house, until we built a brick wall 
around and over the boiler, a foot or two away from it. In 
eight years we used four successive patterns of burner, each 
an improvement over the previous one. We lived in that 
house sixteen years, when we left it to move to Los Angeles. 

During our life in Pasadena we entered more or less into 
the various activities of the city — social, educational, financial 
and even political. Mrs. Bridge was busy in a quiet way 
with her social affairs, gave some time to the women's organi- 
zation of her church (Universalist) , and more to the care and 
comfort of two remarkable women, our mothers. Our house 
was called by many of our friends "The House of the Two 
Mothers." We ourselves often called them "The girls." 
They enjoyed each other greatly, and enjoyed us, their two 
children, perhaps even more. My mother told a neighbor 
one day what a fortunate woman her daughter-in-law was 
to have such a husband, and my mother-in-law on another 
day told the same neighbor what a fortunate man her son- 
in-law was to have such a wife. Each was entirely satisfied 
with the situation as she saw it. 



160 THE MARCHING YEARS 

These women were unlike each other in almost every 
particular; unlike in life history, in education, in their looks 
and ways of walking and acting; in view-point on many 
subjects. They were alike in having a staunch, liberal 
religious faith. Mrs. Manford was an educated woman, 
and before her marriage had been a teacher. She kept a 
diary and wrote a great deal, and she read extensively, espe- 
cially in denominational literature. She lived with us over 
two decades, and was always fearful she would be an annoy- 
ance to her son-in-law. During all that time I never saw 
her have in her hands any sewing or other like "work." 
My mother, on the other hand, had the misfortune to have 
had almost no schooling, had spent years in the hard work of 
a farmer's wife, and had gloried in doing her housework even 
after it ceased to be necessary. Now she amused herself in 
reading newspapers and books, and in doing some wonderful 
specimens of needlework. She was a dyspeptic invalid for 
years. Earlier in life she had been a great sufferer from sick- 
headaches ; and when she was over seventy-five years old she 
found that lager beer at dinner helped her digestion, and she 
liked the taste of it. But because she liked it she would not 
drink it, fearing she might contract a bad habit — she who 
was incapable of having a habit that she could not conquer 
in an instant! She died in our Pasadena home at eighty- 
five years;* the other mother fell asleep there five years 
later at over ninety- two years, f 

During those years Pasadena got the reputation of being 
a small city of millionaires. Really the rich people were few ; 
the large numerical majority were poor people, living in little 
inexpensive bungalows, most of which were wrongly con- 
structed for protection of their occupants against the heat of 
a few hot days of summer, and the nights following such 
days. The fault was that the roofs of most of them were 
relatively flat, and set down close to the ceilings of the rooms. 



*June IS, 1903. 
tAugust 16, 1908. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 161 

There should have been a six-foot ventilated attic with an 
opening in the ceiling to let the hot air rise and find its way 
out of doors. That would have saved the need of a summer 
sojourn to the beaches, which many families who could ill 
afford it, had to take. 

Soon after moving to Pasadena I joined with a few of my 
neighbors in forming the Union Savings Bank (afterward 
also the Union National), and was one of its directors as long 
as we lived there. Some of my associates urged me to take 
the office of vice-president, but this was declined because of 
a lack of any technical knowledge of banking, and the lack 
of time. I told this incident to my friend and neighbor, Mr. 
Sprague, one day when he and his wife were dining with us, 
with the remark that I didn't see why my associates and 
others should persist in regarding me as a rich man. He 
instantly retorted: "Oh, it must be because they have em- 
ployed you." He was capable of that sort of repartee any 
day when he felt well. Once, in Chicago, walking with his 
friends Keith and Bartlett, the former was urging the latter 
not to resign from the board of trustees of a certain college, 
saying: "It takes none of your time except once a year when 
you have to gc to commencement, sit on the platform and 
look wise." Sprague instantly said: "Sit on the platform 
and look wise! Bartlett couldn't do that; he's too con- 
scientious." 

Sprague's wis one of the rarest natures I have ever known 
— and I knew aid loved him from the time of the great fire of 
71 to his deatl in 1909. His friends in Chicago, who were 
legion, built a stately and costly nurses' home for the Pres- 
byterian Hospial and dedicated it to his memory. There is 
now in Chicagcan institution of enormous value to mankind, 
the result of a testamentary foundation by him, that will do 
him honor though the generations to come, "The Otho 
S. A. Sprague Memorial Institute for Medical Research." 
It encourages research in human disease, by supporting 
with funds tie research workers — a thing that is greatly 



162 THE MARCHING YEARS 

needed in this country. Research workers are usually unable 
to support themselves and pay their incidental expenses in 
their various investigations; the Sprague Memorial comes to 
their assistance. There is hardly another kind of phil- 
anthropy so useful as this. The pity is that more wealthy 
people do not know that fact. 

Throop Polytechnic Institute of Pasadena was founded in 
1891 by Amos G. Throop, a greatly respected resident of the 
town. I had known him before he left Chicago, where he was 
a sometime member of the common council, and was esteemed 
far and wide as a man of sterling worth. I soon became a 
member (1894) of the Board of Trustees of the Institute, and 
so continued until the end of 1916, and for the last twenty- 
one years was chairman of the Board. The institution de- 
veloped from a small manual training school to an ambitious 
institute with a small college department, doing work of a 
serious and substantial character. 

Finally the city built a manual training high school, 
which made our manual training work no longer needed. 
The Institute then dropped all departments save the college, 
and that was developed into an engineering college of the 
highest character. Its name was changed to Throop College 
of Technology. Its career since has justified the hopes of 
its friends ; and it has made of Pasadena in themost creditable 
sense a college town. It has a large canpus, modern 
fireproof college buildings of artistic design tind adaptation 
to its work, and a respectable endowment tliat is growing. 
Its usefulness and fame are sure to go on increasing. 

It was during the later years of our resideilce in Pasadena 
that La Vina — the Vineyard — came into existence. It origi- 
nated in the brain of that unselfish genius n philanthropy 
and business management, Dr. Henry B. Stehman,* and 
its upbuilding has been his handiwork chiefly He saw the 
need of a sanatorium for tuberculosis in thelneighborhood. 



*Dr. Stehman was for many years superintendent of the Ppsbyterian Hospital 
in Chicago. He died in Pasadena, February 17, 1918. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 163 

It would do the best work if located outside the town. There 
was a farm a few miles to the northwest that was for sale at 
$30,000. It was at the foot of the mountain, and had an 
abundant water supply. Ten men quickly rallied around 
him with subscriptions of $3,000 each, to buy the farm and 
let him attempt to build up an institution upon it. Then he 
needed buildings, and his neighbors and friends began to offer 
money for them, each donation covering the cost of a build- 
ing. In ten years he had there a little village of simple, 
rude and efficient buildings, and was caring for sixty or more 
patients, mostly indigent and non-paying. The cost of 
maintenance was of course large, but donations, annual 
subscriptions, and gifts of gratitude and sympathy with this 
form of service, have kept the institution out of debt, and 
made it in every way a success in philanthropy and mercy. 
It is now accumulating an endowment whose income will 
be used for maintenance alone. I am sure that no giver of 
little or much to La Vina has ever regretted it or ever will 
regret it. 

It was while living in Pasadena with the office in Los 
Angeles that my professional work attained its greatest 
measure; and it was here too that I began in 1906 deliberately 
to reduce it. The moving of our residence to Los Angeles, 
in September, 1910, helped toward this result, but it was not 
till several years afterward that I was able definitely to go out 
of practice, except for an occasional consultation. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

EUROPE. 

OF the many thousands of American doctors who visited 
the hospitals and laboratories of Europe during the 
past forty years, few of them did much hard work. 
Those who did were mostly young men, and some of them 
engaged in serious work for long periods in both laboratories 
and hospitals. But all brought away the illumination and 
refreshment that comes of seeing others do the things we are 
trying to do, and that require expertness. Some of those 
travelers have come back to tell us that in foreign hospitals 
things are not done any better than we do them ; and this has 
been increasingly true during the last few years prior to the 
Great War. But we always had something to learn from 
them, and frequently a great deal. It always benefits us to 
go away from home to learn anything, even though we might 
by application and industry learn it at home just as truly. 
Away from home, with novel surroundings, we grasp new 
factors and thoughts with more speed, avidity and joy. 
One of the great profits of those years of wandering was the 
growth of a desire to see America develop schools and labora- 
tories, scholars and investigators, that would make such 
foreign study less necessary. Fortunately that consumma- 
tion has come about. We have the laboratories and research 
workers, and the research is going forward largely by private 
endowment, only in part by the grace of public appropriations. 
Mrs. Bridge and I visited Europe twice, in the summers 
of 1889 and 1896, spending about four months each time. 
We combined vacation and sight-seeing with some casual 
study of Europe, and especially for such professional observa- 
tion as I could make in hospitals and schools without serious 
interference with the pleasures of our traveling groups. On 
the first journey we had the company, after our arrival 

[164] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 165 

abroad, of Mr. and Mrs. M. E. Stone and Mr. and Mrs. 0. 
S. A. Sprague; on the second Mrs. Robert J. Burdette and 
her son, Mr. Roy B. Wheeler, and a part of the time Mrs. 
and Miss Reid of Belmont, California. 

We traveled the routes that others had taken, and saw 
many of the sights that had general interest. We saw Europe's 
mountains, lakes and rivers, its fjords and coasts, and, in the 
first journey, the North Cape and the midnight sun;* and rode 
in two-wheeled carts in Norway some four hundred miles. We 
visited the museums and art galleries, and saw the august 
ruins and the excavated wonders of ancient life and civili- 
zation. We did not go to Egypt for its wonders in this sort; 
but Rome we saw (in '96) with its amazing tracks of the 
genus homo through the ages — and these tracks are the chief 
valid reason for going abroad. We were both sick in Rome 
the first week in July — some fever that kept us in bed for a 
week. 

We saw acres of the Old Masters in paintings — a few of 
them were real masters ; only a few — and we saw the ingath- 
ering of things in art and objects and utensils of human 
life throughout history, and aeons before, in the galleries and 
museums, as well as out of doors. We saw these things in 
London, Paris, Milan, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, Florence, 
Venice, Berlin, Vienna; in Strassburg, Dresden, Nurnberg, 
Munich, Leipsic and Geneva; in Amsterdam, Brussels, 
Stockholm, Copenhagen, Christiania and Trondhjem; we 
saw the charms of nature and art in Cadenabia. 

We tried to see — and did somewhat — many of the scenes 
of daily life among the people which most Americans miss in 
their rush to check off the Baedekerian lists of things to look 
at. In the babel of tongues we had the reward of curiosity, 
and saw how very much alike is human nature everywhere 
and in all time. 



*Bishop Chas. H. Fowler and family were with us on the North Cape trip. He 
took a little American flag with him to the Cape; and we held him up on the little 
monument there while he waved it at midnight of July 19. 



166 THE MARCHING YEARS 

I was fortunate in getting a touch — in some centers much 
more than a touch — of hospital and laboratory methods in 
several cities where good work was being done. London, 
Vienna, Berlin, Geneva, Heidelberg, Strassburg, Zurich, 
Leipsic, Dresden, Hamburg, Munich and Erlangen were the 
principal ones. There was a deal of very good work going on ; 
and an occasional error in diagnosis in life was revealed in the 
necropsy, to the sad discomfiture of the clinicians — exactly 
as was being done in America. The pathologists seemed to 
take a poorly disguised delight in revealing the mistakes of 
their clinical brothers, showing a very human weakness that 
seems to be universal. I saw how some of the junior men, 
working hard and struggling for advancement and fame, and 
conceiving new theories of various diseases, would unwit- 
tingly try to make irrelevant facts and circumstances bend 
to the support of them. This is the way of enthusiastic 
theorists and students the world over — and some of those 
young men have since been heard from in a large way in the 
scientific world. 

I left my party one day at Niirnberg and went to the 
near-by town of Erlangen in the hope of seeing Prof. Striimpel, 
of the university. He had just gone off on a vacation, and 
his assistants very kindly entertained me. They showed me 
the hospital, and took me to a fraternity house, where a 
sham duel was fought for my edification — the principals 
having their heads covered by a cuirass of wire, the show in 
all other respects being true to custom. They gave me a 
dinner under the trees in the hospital grounds. In the 
evening they took me to a room in the university, where 
there was in session a medical society, composed of professors 
in the university and outside practitioners. The subject 
under discussion was the "Methods of Medical Education 
in German Universities." 

About thirty members were seated around three long 
tables, and in front of each man was a large measure of beer — 
it must have been nearly or quite a quart. Four or five of 



THE MARCHING YEARS 167 

the men drank four each of these measures during the evening, 
and all drank some of the beer except the secretary of the 
meeting and myself. The meeting adjourned at midnight. 
Some of the eyes were a little suffused, but the men all walked 
out of the room with steady gait. It is refreshing to know 
that the use of alcoholics by students and professors in 
German universities has been greatly reduced by the advice 
and example of the professors themselves, who have demon- 
strated that alcohol hampers the mental processes. 

In April, 1906, I made a hurried trip to London with some 
of my business associates — Messrs. Doheny and Kellogg, with 
their families — for purely business purposes. We remained 
but a few days, and came directly back. There was little 
time for sight-seeing, but we visited the House of Commons 
in session, the National Gallery, the Museum, Westminster 
Abbey and Hyde Park on a Sunday, where we heard ten or a 
dozen different men haranguing separate small groups of 
quiet listeners (from two to twenty in each group) on various 
subjects. They nearly all denounced something, some people 
or laws or customs — and took themselves in all seriousness 
as reformers, ready to save society if not the world. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

AUTHORSHIP. 

MY first experience in authorship, if such it can be called, 
was in compiling and publishing, in association with 
Dr. T. D. Fitch, a little duodecimo book of 360 pages, 
called the "Chicago Medical Register and Directory."* It 
contained, besides a register of the regular profession, a 
description of the non-sectarian medical colleges, and of the 
hospitals, infirmaries, asylums and charitable institutions, 
together with the medical and scientific associations of the 
State of Illinois. It was revised by the presidents of the 
regular medical colleges and societies of Chicago, and of the 
State Medical Society. It was designated Volume I. The 
preface was dated October, 1872. 

The next volume was published in 1874 by the Chicago 
Medico-Historical Society, an organization created for the 
purposes indicated by its title. The editor was Dr. A. Reeves 
Jackson, assisted by a committee on publication, consisting of 
Drs. Thomas Bevan, Norman Bridge, R. C. Hamill, J. E. 
Owens and the editor. 

A third volume was brought out in 1877 by the State 
Medical Society and the Chicago Medico-Historical Society. 
Dr. D. W. Graham was the editor. It was called the " Illinois 
State Medical Register." A fourth volume was published 
two years later under the same auspices. 

This publication was of value to the profession of the city 
and state. Its chief value to me was in the doing of the work; 
a lesson in the getting through the press of a book of some 
sort — any sort. It was the creation of a critical sense, rude 
though it was, in the art of book-making. It was an exercise 
and an experience that made it easier for me to do medical 
editorial work a few years later; and two decades afterward 

*See also Chapter XI. 

[168] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 169 

to begin the creation of books of my very own — the tenta- 
tive breaking into authorship. 

The activities of my life have been such as to offer little 
opportunity for vacations as such purely, or for writing books 
in the best way. The ideal way must be to have enough 
leisure, enough time to sit down and write deliberately — to 
make a business of it. Yet much good writing has been done 
under pressure and in a rush; and some of it has found a 
place in enduring literature. 

From June, 1869, when I had been a graduate in medicine 
a little over a year, to September, 1874, I was a regular con- 
tributor to the Prairie Farmer, a weekly paper that circulated 
extensively among farmers in the middle west. My articles 
were devoted to questions of health, sanitation and sickness, 
and to helping the farmer and his family to keep well as 
far as possible, and take sensible care of themselves when 
they were sick. They appeared under the caption of "Hy- 
giene on the Farm. By a Physician." My name was never 
divulged by the paper except to correspondents who asked 
for it. The articles averaged about one column in length, 
and appeared irregularly. During the five years there were 
some ninety articles printed. Measured by their compensa- 
tion, these writings could not have been very valuable, but 
as I look over them now they seem calculated to be useful; 
and they must have attracted some attention, for numerous 
letters were received by the paper addressed to "The Physi- 
cian," and asking questions about health and disease, and 
suggesting subjects for discussion in the column. Some of 
these letters were flattering to me; and I am bound to say 
that now, after more than four decades, a rereading of the 
papers shows them to be rather well reasoned out, rather well 
written, and distinctly useful to lay people. If they were to 
be republished now they would require but little revision to 
make them tally with the science of today. Whatever value 
they may have had for the country lay public, their writing 
had undoubtedly vastly more value for me. 



170 THE MARCHING YEARS 

At the time these contributions were begun the late Mr. 
Rodney Welch was a regular writer on the paper (afterward on 
the Chicago Times) , and I believe it was due to his friendly 
suggestions that I was invited to write for it. Welch was a 
valued friend to the time of his death. He was an unusual 
character — rather droll, something of an iconoclast, and a 
good deal of a philosopher. 

My little output of books has largely consisted of the 
accumulations of papers, essays and addresses that have been 
read to clubs, societies, schools and colleges on various 
occasions. The papers were mostly written under many 
disadvantages, due to pressing daily cares. No one of 
them was written in a day; most were composed at several, 
some at many, sittings. Sometimes a paper would be started 
by jotting down hurriedly a few leading thoughts, covering 
one or two pages, and not be seen again for weeks, then to 
be revised, added to, elaborated and perhaps typed in triple 
spaces — later to have one or several revisions before reaching 
a stage at all satisfying to the writer. And if he laid the 
paper away for a few weeks, he was sure to find some call 
for further revision on rereading it. 

When the manuscript drawer grew plethoric it was not 
unnatural to wish to see some of the articles in book form. 
So "The Penalties of Taste and Other Essays," a diminutive 
volume, came out in 1898. In four years "The Rewards of 
Taste and Other Papers" appeared. Five years later the 
drawer was again full, and "House Health and Other Papers" 
was printed. This was in 1907. 

In 1914 the drawer again offered fresh temptation; there 
was also another drawer, long neglected and almost forgotten, 
that held a lot of ancient fragments, some of which, being 
read again, had an interest for the writer that provoked a 
desire to see them in better form, for his own satisfaction at 
least. So in a few months — out of the two drawers — came the 
book, larger than any of its predecessors, called "Fragments 
and Addresses." 



THE MARCHING YEARS 171 

The publishers of the last book asked to have a picture of 
the author tipped into each copy intended for presentation 
— which was the major part of the edition. The scheme was 
agreed to, and so a photograph that flattered him most and 
was least severe in visage was selected and used. The work 
of the publishers of this book was much complimented; 
indeed, one author and editor, in a middle western univer- 
sity, wrote me, saying: "Your effusions are sent forth in 
such elegance of form that I feel like putting on my dress 
suit when I sit down to read them!" 

Some of the articles in these books have appeared in 
various periodicals, and in reprints for special distribution; 
and, in using them for the books, they have all undergone 
revision and more or less enlargement. 

A wise observer — perhaps himself the author of un- 
popular books — has said in substance that many books of 
great merit have had small sales, and that the size of the sales 
is often in inverse ratio to the real value of the book. If 
this is true I must have written some rare literature. Really, 
these books were published chiefly for my personal satisfaction 
and for the few friends who might care to have and perhaps 
read them. 

In the book "Penalties," the name of the author was 
printed without any degree marks, and some amusing 
inquiries were made of the publishers and booksellers, as to 
whether the author could be a relative of the physician of the 
same name. This incident led to the use of the M.D. after 
the author's name in the second and third books. When 
"Fragments" came to be printed he had so far overcome his 
scruples as to use also the A.M. of a degree that had been 
given him complimentarily by Lake Forest College in 1889 
— when he was abroad.* He never by academic attendance 
had earned such a degree; and he really disapproved of them, 
as many of his friends knew — some of these probably con- 
nived to procure the degree when he was in Europe. 

"The degree of LL.D. was bestowed by Occidental College in 1920. 



172 THE MARCHING YEARS 

It is interesting, at least to the author, to review the cir- 
cumstances that prompted the preparation of some of the 
papers in these books. "The Penalties of Taste" as an essay 
grew out of my observation of a large number of good people 
of refinement who, by their emotional instability and their 
critical irritability, showed that they plainly bore the stripes 
of the "penalties." Such excessive so-called refinement of 
taste was clearly a misfortune to many of them, since it 
exposed them to constant carking from the lack of re- 
finement all about them. Some of them had "nervous 
prostration"; some had much worse mental troubles. The 
essay was written in the hope of helping such unfortunates. 

" Bashfulness " was first an address delivered in 1895 in 
the First Presbyterian Church of Los Angeles (then located 
on the southeast corner of Second Street and Broadway). 
The subject was suggested by some of the author's own ex- 
periences; and a discriminating listener to the address, when 
asked what he thought of it, said that it was a good subject, 
as well as a new one, and that the speaker had "in his own 
person illustrated his theme." That the topic was one that 
much needed to be studied was shown by the number of 
readers who, after the book was published, thanked the 
author for the comfort and aid they had personally received 
from this article. He was a trifle swollen with the notion that 
he had treated a neglected subject of great importance in a 
wholly novel and useful way. He had made some search of 
the literature for anything on the subject, and had found 
nothing. But years afterwards he chanced to be looking 
through a volume of Plutarch's miscellaneous writings, and 
there was an article on bashfulness. His own paper was 
not enough like this ever to have led to a charge of plagiarism, 
yet a carping critic who had known of the ancient article 
could have made him uncomfortable if he had cared to, by 
printing parts of the two in parallel columns. 

"The Nerves of the Modern Child" was written in the 
interest of children born nervous, often of nervous parents, 



THE MARCHING YEARS 173 

who are handicapped by influences that tend to make them 
grow worse, and have less stability of brain and nerves than 
their parents had, and so pass into adult life with less power, 
where they ought to have more. To no other person in the 
community is this dangerous tendency so apparent as to the 
observant physician; and he, more than any other, is able 
to suggest how it may be lessened — although his suggestions 
are rarely followed. 

"Our Poorly Educated Educators" was prompted by a 
knowledge of numerous teachers of narrow subjects, many of 
them good in their respective fields, who were woefully 
ignorant about nearly everything else — especially about the 
commonest things of life. Nothing showed this more vividly 
than an attempt to find tutors for a few non-vigorous boys 
who needed to be much out of doors, and to have such a 
companion-teacher capable of answering with some intelli- 
gence all the questions a bright boy would naturally ask; 
and of teaching at least the primer of the sciences that can 
be studied out of doors. Among such subjects are botany, 
forestry, agriculture, horticulture, animal industry, zoology, 
geology, astronomy and meteorology. To find a tutor with 
such capabilities, who can make himself agreeable to a boy, 
and be able to influence him for his largest good, is nearly 
as difficult as to find a good president for a college. 

"Some Tangents of the Ego" was a study of that maze of 
human peculiarities, aberrations from the ideal or average, 
which we see so often in the lives of people. It is these 
peculiarities and habits that not only handicap the indi- 
vidual through life (usually without his knowing it), but 
which lead some psychiatrists to say, because there are so 
many queer and unaverage people, that most of us are hover- 
ing near the border line of insanity. How to lead some such 
unfortunates to discover their handicaps and remove them, 
and so conspire to more power and easier living, seemed 
a problem worthy of the most serious treatment. It was 
the intention of the author that this essay should give the 



174 THE MARCHING YEARS 

title to the second book, instead of "The Rewards of Taste, " 
but he was unfortunately persuaded otherwise by his 
publishers. 

"The Mind for a Remedy," as it appeared in the book, 
led some good people to think the author must be a so-called 
Christian Scientist, but the paper gives no ground for such a 
suspicion. It is an attempt to set forth in a simple and 
rational manner the influence of mental moods on the sensa- 
tions and nervous symptoms of the body; and to tell how we 
can ameliorate or control some of the abnormal sensations 
and conditions of the body by voluntary effort. Its content 
tions are scientific and demonstrable, without a particle of 
mystery. There are many sane-minded people who are glad 
to look on life and living in this rational way, and they get 
comfort from this manner of reasoning. There are others 
who love mystery, and are unhappy if they are asked to see 
many of the phenomena of life explained in a rational way 
— yet their bodies function constantly by physiological rules 
that vary only a little. The essay is a most practical one, 
and closes with some eight plain rules for attaining the best 
results. 

"The Etiology of Lying," once read before an assembly of 
high school teachers in Chicago, was an argument leveled at 
a group of literalists, doctrinaires, moralists and religionists, 
who say — and think they believe — that when we speak at all 
we should speak the exact truth, and usually the whole 
truth, at all times and in all situations; and that anything 
short of this is a grievous sin. Many of them are excellent 
people who are anxious about their own conduct, even if 
they are more anxious about that of their neighbors. Of 
course they do not live up to their theories. They hide 
their own foibles from those about them (whatever they do 
with their confessors), and they do a world of mischief by 
accusing others — saner and better people than themselves 
often — of sins of omission and commission that are either 



THE MARCHING YEARS 175 

never committed or, if so, are not sins, but commendable 
virtues. 

The fact is that every normal person has some parts of his 
thoughts, motives and life that are his own, indubitably, and 
that he cannot fully reveal to others, if he would. If he 
tries and pretends to do this he makes a mess of it, as when 
one who is responsible for the safety and perhaps the life 
of the sick reveals to the patient unnecessarily and often 
brutally his every fear and misgiving. He then perhaps 
carries dismay to a soul that is holding on to life by the 
slenderest thread of hope and courage, which may be snapped 
by such an indiscretion. 

Loyalty to one's self and to others, to the troubled, the 
weak and defenseless, and those who may be struggling to rise 
above their foibles to better things, usually shows the sane 
well-wisher of his race what to tell, what to hide, what to 
forget, or hold that he never knew, and what to shout from the 
house tops. We should cultivate that sort of loyalty. And 
the letter of the truth can never excuse us from construc- 
tive falsehood, that is told with a selfish purpose, or that 
ignores the rights and true interests of others. There can 
be no final salvation for those guilty in this sort. When we 
veer from the literal line it must never be for an ignoble 
purpose; and all wholesome people must agree with that 
American statesman (sometime Speaker of the House of 
Representatives) that we must lose respect for those people 
"who waste lies." 

"Man as an Air-eating Animal" was written to emphasize 
the fact, generally unknown, that man is to a large degree an 
air-eating animal; to show how the food of man, the sub- 
stances that build up and sustain his body, are largely such 
compounds of carbon as finally derive this element from the 
very small quantity of carbon dioxide (carbonic acid gas) 
in the atmosphere, and for which, and to capture which, all 
the leaves of the plant kingdom spread out their broad sur- 
faces during the seasons when this function can be performed. 



176 THE MARCHING YEARS 

Our reasoning on a subject is often faulty because we fail to 
comprehend a simple basic fact; and this truth of the way 
animals grow and live is a basic one, that it is comforting 
to know. 

"The Rewards of Taste" was written to catalogue a few 
of the advantages of good taste which those without it can 
never know, much less have; to argue that, if we are sensible, 
the rewards far outweigh and outnumber the penalties; and 
that we may not only secure these advantages, but continue 
to hold them and have the joy of seeing them grow under 
our hand. 

"The Psychology of the Corset" is a piece of extravagant, 
hyperbolic glorification of the corset and its congeners, as 
used in one form or another through the ages. It embodies 
some fun-poking satire at the almost universal wearing of 
the garment — or the thing, if it is not a garment — by women 
of all history. This purpose of the essay must have been 
adroitly hidden or be very dull, for the woman readers of it 
do not seem to have discovered it, to any extent. My 
impression is that the woman readers of the book have 
usually skipped this article. 

"The Physical Basis of Hypercriticism. " For all art 
there are abroad many critics with standards so high and 
exacting that they may be called hypercritics. To them 
there is one standard for all people; and they find so much 
to object to in every work of art of every kind, that they 
become great fault finders. They sometimes actually seem 
malevolent, and they are very unhappy; they are never 
quite satisfied with anything. But most of them were not 
always so; they have grown, developed — or degenerated — 
into their more extreme state from a previous one of fairer 
judgment and more joyous outlook. How did they come to 
change? It was not by premeditation or design; it must 
have come about in a rational way by the operation of dis- 
coverable causes. This essay is an attempt to explain the 
mental and spiritual phenomena, in the physical laws and 



THE MARCHING YEARS 177 

attributes of the something we rather loosely call the faculties 
of the mind. 

"The Discordant Children" was written in the interest of 
a class of troublesome children, mostly boys, who are fre- 
quently out of agreement with their home discipline, and 
always object to the course of education and training that is 
designed for and fits the majority of children. The dis- 
cordant child hates the memory studies and set regulations of 
indoor schools; he cannot or will not learn, and ceases to try 
to make any creditable record in either studies or conduct. 
He is unhappy in his relations with parents, teachers and his 
more normal fellows. But he is docile, tractable and pro- 
gressive with outdoor studies that deal with things, and in 
shops with tools and materials to work with. When put 
under such conditions, which for him are the right ones, the 
transformation is startling and immediate. The child be- 
comes responsive and is happy; soon he is a creditable member 
of society. The trouble with these children is not plain 
viciousness, as is usually supposed, but a peculiar mental 
constitution that differentiates them from the majority, and 
for which they are no more responsible than they are for the 
shape of their faces. They have some natural rights, and one 
of them is to have at least an attempt made to find for them 
some field of activity that they will take tq and pursue 
continuously. Five minutes of sympathetic conversation 
with such a child is usually enough to solve the riddle, and 
discover with him the trail that he will be glad to travel — 
and along which he will find both pleasure and success. 

"House Health," as an argument, grew out of a paper 
on "Housing of the Poor," read before the "National Con- 
ference of Charities and Correction" at Portland, Oregon. 
There it was contended that one of the first requirements 
of good housing is more fresh air in the house, more cracks 
and crannies, fewer weather strips, more ventilation — always 
with dry floors. The habit of most people, rich and poor, in 
winter is to have living rooms too hot, and to wear clothes 



178 THE MARCHING YEARS 

too thin; hence the demand for high room- heat. Rooms in 
winter should be cool; the occupants should be clad with 
more and warmer clothing, and sleeping should be with open 
windows and outdoor air. 

To the contention that outdoor air is too cold for sleeping 
in winter, it may be replied that hundreds of delicate persons 
are doing this very thing without difficulty ; and to the claims 
that with even moderate ventilation in winter the cost of the 
added fuel and clothes would be too great for people of 
moderate means, the reply is that no more than the usual 
amount of fuel would be required, since the rooms would 
be at least ten degrees F. lower in temperature, and that the 
added cost of clothes would be saved in better health, more 
vigor of body, and a reduction in that most expensive of all 
calamities, the family sickness. Some fresh air and some 
motion of the air in the house are necessary for health and 
vigor. The man who can have only a loosely built shack that 
he cannot keep the fresh air out of, and who must therefore 
at all times be something of an outdoor animal, is better off 
than his rich neighbor with a fine house, from which he shuts 
out all he can of the fresh air. Hibernation may be good for 
the bears and squirrels, but hardly for human beings. 

"Human Talk. " Next to the vital processes of the body, 
talk is the most inevitable function of human kind. It 
powerfully contributes to the indispensable interests of life. 
It is the major instrument of the social life of us all. It is 
vital to our industries, our companionships and defense. 
More than any other function it reveals man's personal 
peculiarities, and throws many side-lights on his real self, 
that he often tries to disguise. It occasionally shows him 
strong where he thinks himself weak, and uncovers his 
foibles that he thinks he knows how to hide, and tries to 
hide. It divulges for each some characteristic that he hopes 
and believes he lacks, and all of this apart from the aspect of 
language as an organized means of expression. One of the 
most interesting as well as exclusive phases of this function is 



THE MARCHING YEARS 179 

laughter. This forms a part of most of the talk peculiarities 
of the race. 

This essay was begun as a matter of record of the gro- 
tesque phases of talk, as observed from time to time. Then 
the subject grew, new forms appeared and a new interest in 
them, and so the paper became a document of dimensions, 
without even getting sight of the end of the study. The 
paper was read before two bodies of superior people, one 
being the friends of Mrs. Robert Burdette at her monthly 
"Tuesday evening." 

"The Blind Side of the Average Parent" was written to 
emphasize the obliviousness of most parents to certain 
foibles of their children. It is curious, as most parents recall 
and tell of the ways they in childhood fooled and circumvented 
their parents, that they are not canny enough to avoid being 
fooled by their children in similar ways. This refers to the 
ordinary course of discipline and faith; but the blindness 
extends much farther than that, namely, to habits and 
manners the children have acquired, and that frequently 
make them disagreeable to others, and that often handicap 
them in life, and fate them to fall behind their fellows in the 
struggles for success. 

That this last result should follow is, when they find it 
out, a great shock to every thoughtful parent. Nor are their 
feelings helped when they learn that the basis of such habits 
and foibles is aboriginal egotism, otherwise selfishness, the 
most fundamental impulse of the race — the one that, more 
than almost any other, betrays us into excesses that grow to 
be habits and shunt us into the track we should never wish 
to take. 

What glory there is in right parenthood, and what rewards 
it deserves ! And how lamentable that the best guides for the 
weal of the average child should have to be found in those 
who have never raised, been fooled by, or worshiped blindly, 
a child of their own! 



180 THE MARCHING YEARS 

"Some Commencement Ideals" was delivered at a com- 
mencement in Rush Medical College of the University of 
Chicago. 

"A Domestic Clearing House." My great friend, the 
late Dr. H. B. Stehman, told me one day of his notion that 
an honest and honestly managed matrimonial bureau would 
be a commendable thing; that it might do a great deal of 
good, and ought to be encouraged. He was willing to 
elaborate the idea for the public, although he foresaw that 
his thesis might be unpopular. I told him of an unpopular 
project of my own, namely, that a lot of nervous children, 
made worse by their nervous parents, ought to be adopted 
into tranquil, un-nervous families; and that the tranquil, 
perhaps dullish, children of these families ought to be sent 
into the nervous households of the over-alert people, in order 
to spur them to more activity. This swapping process would 
make for saner and better balanced children, and ought to 
be adopted. 

We agreed to write out our ideas, and, if we should be 
allowed, read them on some ladies' night before "The Twi- 
light Club" of Pasadena. I wrote my paper with fairly full 
elaboration and grim humor, and read it. But my friend 
weakened, and presented a paper with the bold features of 
his theory, as he had explained it to me, left out. He evidently 
thought his original plan was too radical, but it was capable 
of realization ; while my scheme, although excellent in theory, 
was incapable of any extended practical use. 

Two brilliant women had been appointed to discuss my 
paper. Each had read the manuscript beforehand. One of 
them treated the paper as a sober scheme put forward as a 
working basis for actual life, with the expectation of its 
extensive adoption. And she cleverly set forth the practical 
difficulties in the way of carrying it out. The other woman, 
with a larger sense of humor, uncovered, in a gale of merri- 
ment, the grotesque side of the proposal, and made it even 
more funny than it was. She added immensely to the 



THE MARCHING YEARS 181 

interest in the paper and the amusement of the occasion, 
and she helped the paper to reveal the decided and opposite 
needs of two classes of unfortunate children. 

"The True Gospel of Sleep" was written in behalf of a 
great number of poor sleepers, mostly intellectual people, 
who worry and fume because they cannot sleep when and 
as long as they think they ought to, and who actually keep 
themselves awake by their state of mind. These good people 
are entitled to our largest sympathy. Some of them have 
made themselves nearly insane with worry or sleeping drugs, 
or both, and with no final benefit, but great harm, from both. 

The contention of the paper is that we need less sleep 
than is usually supposed, but that we should have at least 
eight hours daily of horizontal rest of the body. Also that 
if we put ourselves in the condition to invite sleep normally, 
enough of it will come for our needs, provided we cease to 
fret about it. The essay must have fulfilled its mission to a 
large degree in proportion to its reading, for the author has 
received many evidences of sincere thankfulness from those 
who have said they were helped and comforted by it. 

"Some Usually Unconsidered Rights of Parents and 
Children" is a further study of the general subject of parents 
and children, and an effort to state some of the rarely con- 
sidered rights of each class, the better understanding of which 
would lead to less friction in families and more power and 
success to the children in their after lives. 

"The Trained Nurse and the Larger Life" was a com- 
mencement address at the Pasadena Training School for 
Nurses. 

"The Physical Basis of Expertness" in its early form was 
read before a company of theological students in Chicago. 
It is a study of the process by which all acquired expertness 
is produced, and this means, of course, all education — but 
not instinct. The thing that was found to happen was the 
creation, by the effect of a cerebral act oft repeated in a set 
way, of a habit of automatic action by the cells of the brain 



182 THE MARCHING YEARS 

and other nerve centers, whereby at a suggestion they work 
in a fixed and therefore deft manner. The formation of a 
habit, which is education, consists in the creation of an 
automatism of nerve centers; the changing of a habit or the 
abolition of one is the slow process of inducing the centers to 
forget their tendency, to dull their automatism, usually by 
the formation of another and a different habit. The highest 
expertness is where the will and taste of the individual, by 
repeated effort and the performance of a given act thousands 
of times, are able to bring the automatism up to a high degree 
of refined perfection — well shown in musicians. 

"Am I Really my Brother's Keeper?" was a discourse 
delivered at the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minne- 
apolis, preceding an annual meeting of the American Medical 
Association. It was a plea in behalf of the innocent victims 
— actual and prospective — of the frightful havoc of infirmity 
and death due to the diseases of social irregularity, dissipa- 
tion and lechery. It discussed with approval a new article 
in the principles of medical ethics of the Association, which 
gives the physician a new opportunity and power for the 
protection of the innocent. 

"The Ultimate Goal" was an address delivered at the 
University of Southern California at the inauguration of the 
college year of 1913-14. 

"Claypole, the Man" was an address at the memorial 
exercises at Throop College of Technology in Pasadena, in 
honor of the late Dr. E. W. Claypole, a professor in that 
institution. He was a greatly learned man, a phenomenal 
teacher, and as modest as he was great. He was a lifelong 
teacher, born in England, and working many years in this 
country. He made distinct contributions to American 
scholarship, especially in the field of geology. 

"An Induction Address" was delivered, as chairman of 
the trustees of Throop College, at the induction into the 
presidency, of Dr. Jas. A. B. Scherer, in 1908. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 183 

The address "Charles Dwight Willard" was spoken, in 
behalf of the "Sunset Club" of Los Angeles, at the funeral 
of that long-suffering, great soul — himself the founder of the 
Club — who had for a fifth of a century been a notable figure 
in the intellectual life of the southwest. 

"The Southwest Museum" was an address delivered on 
the occasion of the laying of the memorial stone of the 
Museum building on Museum Hill in Los Angeles, in 1913. 
I was then the president of the board of trustees, succeeding 
General Adna Chaffee, who was its first president. 

The Museum as a corporation was a voluntary enterprise, 
started some years before by a few citizens, out of an ambi- 
tion to preserve the relics, archaeological, ethnological and 
otherwise, of the southwest; and for art, general culture and 
scholarship. This was the first building constructed for the 
housing of its collections and libraries, and for the center of 
its ambitious educational activities. 

"Vermont" was a presidential address delivered many 
years ago in Chicago at an annual dinner of the "Illinois 
Association of the Sons of Vermont." For many years this 
was a flourishing society of native Vermonters and their 
relatives, and the annual dinner was quite an event. 

"A Program for America" was written for a symposium 
on the best program for the permanent ambition of American 
thought, invited by the editors of the American Journal of 
Sociology, and printed in that periodical in 1914. The pro- 
gram proposed was, in brief, for such activities as will 
lengthen the average span of human life. In half a century 
the average has been extended, in enlightened countries, 
fifty per cent, and it may be still further advanced. The 
argument was that, if the average life is growing longer, 
America is on the right track; that the measures required to 
produce this result are sure to be such as are in general best 
for the nation, now and permanently. 

"Woman in Business as Affecting Health and Morals" 
was a paper written for the American Academy of Medicine, 



184 THE MARCHING YEARS 

and printed in its Bulletin in 1908. The conclusions reached 
were that the health and morals of women — and so of the 
community — were safe, so far as affected by the business 
lives of women; and that the intellectual development, self- 
reliance and trustworthiness of the business women them- 
selves were improved rather than otherwise by their work; 
finally, that under certain circumstances business pursuits for 
many women are unavoidable, as well as commendable — and 
in the exercise of their manifest rights. 

"The Best Bath for Mankind" was first published in a 
professional journal, that of the American Medical Associa- 
tion, and was afterwards recast and printed in the Journal 
of the Outdoor Life in 1907. It was a plea for the very hot, 
quick bath instead of the shivering cold one that so many 
good people habitually tax their courage to take, in the 
belief that it will somehow invigorate them — and about 
which some of them gently prevaricate when they declare 
they like it. It was shown that the hot, quick bath neither 
causes relaxation and debility nor cold-catching or any other 
calamity, and that a dash of cold water after the hot is wholly 
unnecessary; also that cold baths are not necessary to toughen 
the body or ward off sickness; and that to prescribe for the 
weak, debilitated and sick the frigid bath is a mild crime, if 
nothing worse. 

As to the prevarication referred to above, the editor of 
Outdoor Life was right, if perhaps a trifle irreverent, when 
he wrote that he "long ago came to believe that any man who 
says he enjoys getting out of a warm bed, and into a tub 
of cold water, is a liar by the clock." 

"The Prevention of Railroad Accidents Due to the 
Personal Equation" was read before a national convention 
of railway surgeons at Chicago. Many accidents occur from 
blunders of the most experienced and trustworthy employes 
engaged in what may be called danger jobs, such as engineers, 
switchmen and train dispatchers. Why is it? One answer 
was that long habituation to a like movement or situation 



THE MARCHING YEARS 185 

creates a habit of expertness and an ease and naturalness 
of performance that lead a man often to forget that his task 
is a danger job; the mental attention he gives to the task 
because of its danger relaxes — then in a fateful moment is gone. 
He blunders, and there is a wreck and people are killed. 
The remedy suggested was to change the jobs of old employes 
long engaged in hazard work, to wholly different ones for 
months at a time; then to bring them back to their former 
work a little strange to it, so that they would be obliged to 
give it more concentration of mind. It was perhaps a 
rather paradoxical remedy for carelessness. As a practical 
remedy it was not very defensible; but the theory of the 
cause of the occurrence of many of the accidents is un- 
doubtedly correct. The more practical remedy would be 
a more constant supervision and watchfulness of all the 
employes, young and old, in hazard work, and the 
prompt discharge of the old employes discovered to be care- 
less. The tendency of superintendents is to forgive the 
older employe, and hold to severe account the younger one. 
The rule ought to be that years of service in hazard jobs 
should in their ratio lessen the right to mercy for a blunder. 
Such a rule would help the old engineer to keep his mental 
attention and sense of responsibility always alert. 

The book on "Tuberculosis," prepared for students and 
practitioners of medicine — although much more read by lay 
people interested in the subject — grew out of a course of 
lectures in Rush College. The lectures were taken down in 
shorthand, and then recast somewhat and considerably con- 
densed for the book. 

The volume is a modest little affair in the midst of a 
great wealth of literature on tuberculosis that has grown 
up — and filled the lay mind as well as the professional — 
since the discovery of the tubercle bacillus. With the 
literature have come hospitals and sanatoriums for the vic- 
tims, scattered in great numbers over the whole enlightened 
world. There have been formed many societies for the 



186 THE MARCHING YEARS 

study and prevention of the disease, and the most painstaking 
and exhaustive research has been carried on for the purpose 
of finding some means of destroying the bacilli in the body 
without harming the patient. And such a discovery is 
likely to be made. 

Many years ago I joined in the work of writing an encyclo- 
pedia of medicine, published by Wm. Wood & Co. under the 
general editorship of Dr. A. H. Buck. The work filled nine 
large volumes, and was for years a valuable "Reference 
Handbook" (as it was well named) to many progressive 
practitioners of medicine. Mine was a very minor part, 
covering only a few articles*; but the research and careful 
writing that attended the task were mentally both pleasant 
and profitable. 

First and last, I wrote many papers on professional sub- 
jects that appeared in medical journals, and some of them 
in books. The more notable of these included one on a certain 
cough and wheezing symptom or sign in one-sided pulmonary 
tuberculosis (sometimes called later by physicians the 
"Bridge sign"); a paper entitled "Some Truths about 
Sleep," another on "The Draught Fetish," and that on 
"The Best Bath for All People." These last three, under 
slightly different titles, went into my books. 

I read a paper on "Appendicitis from the Standpoint of 
the Physician" early in the history of the modern pathology 
of that disease, before the Association of American Physi- 
cians, of which I was a member. The paper took strong 
ground in favor of early surgical interference, a position that 
has only been confirmed by all the experience since. 

♦"Headache," "Intestinal Colic," "Diarrhoea" and "Gonorrheeal Rheumatism." 
(See Appendix VI for partial list of publications.) 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

COURTS AND DOCTORS. 

THE experience as an expert witness under cross-ex- 
amination in court has been the triumph and the 
discomfiture of many doctors. Sometimes the dis- 
comfiture is in part the fault of the doctors themselves. 
They don't like to reveal any appearance of ignorance on the 
witness stand; they are afraid of saying they don't know, 
so they bluff and pretend and guess — and a shrewd lawyer 
is quick to see this, and to try to humiliate them, and he 
frequently succeeds. Average the cases, and it is the 
superior, courageous doctor who hews to the line and boldly 
says he doesn't know, when he is not sure of himself. But 
the best of them fall into a bad habit, very common in the 
practice of medicine, of making dogmatic statements which 
a moment's reflection should show them they cannot prove 
or defend — and this habit is likely to betray them on the 
witness stand, to the delight of the counsel on the other side, 
who is watching like a hawk for just this sort of a slip, 
ready to pounce upon them. The bad habit referred to 
leads a man to make such statements as, " Oh, he will get well " 
or " He will die, " when he does not really mean either of them. 
He means that the percentage of certainty is large that 
he will get well, or will die. And he ought to speak in 
percentages or with the qualification "probably" or some 
other that gives a truer meaning. 

Everyone ought to master a few rules and principles 
that may help to avoid trouble. Many years ago in Chicago, 
Lawyer Van Arman led a medical witness to swear that he 
was familiar with and had read several wholly mythical 
medical books, and then humiliated him by stating the 
facts to the judge and jury. Since that day at least three 
reputable medical men have walked into similar traps set 

[187] 



188 THE MARCHING YEARS 

for them by cross-examining lawyers in the Chicago courts 
— yet Van Arman's trick has been all the while familiar 
history to the Chicago profession. 

My own court experience has been considerable; and my 
effort has been to remember always some injunctions received 
from a great teacher of legal medicine in Chicago Medical 
College many years ago, Dr. R. J. Patterson. He looked 
like the poet Tennyson, and read his lectures in a simple 
way. They might have been prosy, but they were so plain, 
and worded with such linguistic finish, and in spots they were 
so spicy as to make them an informing luxury to listen to. 
His lecture on expert testimony is vividly remembered, and 
has, I am sure, kept me out of trouble many times. He 
advised us to use plain, simple, terse statements that we 
could be sure of and defend; rarely if ever to volunteer 
testimony, and, especially when not absolutely sure, to say, 
"I don't know" or "I am not prepared to answer without 
further reflection and reference to authorities." "This last 
statement," he said, "is a bulwark behind which you can 
retreat, and from which the court, the lawyers and the 
devil cannot drive you." 

My first experience with courts was at the beginning of 
my medical studies when passing through Chicago. A 
bailiff had been ordered by the court to go out and bring in 
a juryman, and he caught me. It was in the summer of 
1866, when I was on the way from Morris to Malta to help 
in the harvesting. Having a few hours to wait in Chicago, 
I went to the Court House and climbed to the top of its 
tower to get a view of the city and see the monster bell, 
hung in the open on the roof of the building by the side of 
the tower. The bell struck the hours of the day by the power 
of a man's hand bearing down a big lever that swung the 
clapper. The tower was the tallest structure in the city. 
The man who struck the hours was out in plain sight while 
operating his lever — which made the sight more interesting 
to boys of all ages. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 189 

Years afterward, when a great fire was raging, that 
destroyed the business section of the city, that bell brought 
me a significant message. The fire had been moving for- 
ward for many hours, the fire department was crippled by the 
broken-down water works, and it was evident that every- 
thing combustible in the path of the wind was bound to go. 
But I could not feel that this was true, and was hoping against 
all reason that somehow the fire would stop. Then the big 
bell began to toll rapidly, and continued for five minutes. 
That settled it; the fire would take everything ahead of it, 
and I felt it. The fact is that the bell watchman saw that 
he must leave his post in a few minutes or be destroyed, 
and he tolled his knell of the city. The Court House was 
ablaze in thirty minutes. 

But this is digression. I came down from the tower and 
was passing out of the building when a bailiff took me by the 
arm and marched me into the presence of the court, to become 
a juryman. To my protest that I was a stranger in the 
city he replied that for that reason I would make a good 
juror. He probably thought I was lying to escape jury 
duty. In the court room I was sworn to tell the truth, etc.; 
then a lot of questions were asked by the lawyers — my 
name, age, residence, and whether I knew the parties to 
the suit. They promptly accepted me for a juror, and I 
arose and asked to have the ear of the court. This surprised 
the bailiff and the lawyers, and one of them said: "Your 
Honor, this juror wishes to speak to you," The judge said, 
with a surprised look, "Well, what is it?" I explained that 
I wished to be excused from service, as I was a stranger 
in the city, on my way home, sixty miles away, for the 
benefit of my health, which was poor — and that last was 
literally true at that moment. He said, "Do you swear 
that you are not a resident of this county?" I said, "Yes, 
sir. I am a citizen of DeKalb County." "Then you are 
excused." He turned to the lawyers and said: "We cannot 



190 THE MARCHING YEARS 

hold this man for jury service against his wish. Bailiff, bring 
in another man." 

Physicians have one legal advantage over most of their 
neighbors: They are substantially never drawn for jury duty, 
except occasionally in the insane courts, where the law re- 
quires a physician on the jury of six persons. The sole 
jury service of my life was in a case of this sort, and in 
Chicago while I was still a citizen of California. It was at 
the request of County Judge Carter, a request instead of an 
order, owing to my foreign citizenship. 

The man involved was one of the so-called border-line 
cases, where the patients, although clearly insane, show it so 
little to the appreciation of the lay mind, that it is always 
difficult to procure their commitment to a suitable hospital, 
where alone there is much chance for their recovery. In 
this case it was not strange that five uneducated, simple 
minded lay jurors failed to see how the man could possibly 
be insane when he had behaved so normally before them. 
So the jury failed to agree, and was discharged; it stood 5 
to 1 for acquittal. The patient proved the case later by a 
convincing climax that left no doubt that the one juror 
was in the right. 

I studied this case closely as the evidence was being 
presented, and, when this part of the proceedings was finished, 
thought I knew every argument and evidence for and against 
considering the case a real one. I had given such cases 
more study, had had more experience and opportunity for 
knowledge about them, than most practitioners who are not 
specialists in psychiatry, and ought to have had a better 
understanding of the case than any lawyer. But Mr. John 
P. Wilson, Sr., put my self-sufficiency to shame in a phe- 
nomenal speech to the jury, in which he presented arguments 
that I had not even thought of. It was the most masterly 
argument upon evidence of fact that I have ever heard in 
court or anywhere else. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 191 

A few years before my expatriation from Chicago, I was 
an expert witness, as well as a witness of fact, for the 
plaintiff, in a case rather celebrated because of the large 
verdict of damages for personal injuries against a railroad 
— $25,000. It was finally confirmed by the Appellate 
and Supreme Courts of the State, and paid with interest. 
It was said to be the largest verdict ever collected in this 
country in a case of this kind, up to that time; there have 
been larger verdicts since. The plaintiff, a passenger con- 
ductor, had, in a collision, been thrown against a seat in the 
car in which he was riding, and had then fallen to the floor. 
He at first thought his injuries trifling, and soon went 
on about his work. There was no external injury, but in a 
few days he began to have pains in the back, and other 
symptoms of so-called — and improperly called — "spinal irrita- 
tion." He had to quit work, and never went back to it. 
He went on from bad to worse; was soon confined to his 
house, and then to his bed — and was there still when, many 
months after the accident, his case was called for trial. 
Neither the judge nor jury ever even saw him, although 
all the expert witnesses had examined him at his home 
twenty miles away. He had many nervous and neuralgic 
symptoms, lost weight extremely, and once, some weeks 
before the trial, had what appeared from the accounts of 
it to have been an epileptic convulsion. The railroad people 
believed the man was shamming, and refused to make an 
adequate settlement with him; and this fact worried him 
greatly and undoubtedly added to his invalidism. 

This course of things nearly always happens in cases of 
personal injury where the victim harbors for a long time a 
deep sense of wrong against the corporation or the man 
responsible for his injury. He rarely recovers as long as his 
claim is unsettled; he often gets worse, and not seldom is 
ruined for life — and in many cases without the slightest 
conscious attempt at malingering. Undoubtedly there is in 



192 THE MARCHING YEARS 

many of these cases unconscious shamming, and not a little 
that is purposeful, and entitled to no consideration. 

The plaintiff in this case remained a pitiful invalid until 
the final decision of the Supreme Court affirming the verdict 
of the court below, and the money was in the course of being 
paid ; then he began to improve, and was soon out of bed and 
going about, but for a long time was weak and emaciated. 
I don't know if he ever fully recovered; but this I do know, 
that in all such cases it is for the interest of the injured 
person to have a settlement of some sort as soon as possible, 
so as to avoid such an agony of suspense and sense of wrong 
as this man had for many months. No verdict can pay for 
the havoc to the nervous system from such an experience. 
In this case the amount of money it cost the railroad company 
to defend the suit would doubtless have settled the claim; 
and the amount of the verdict would have been saved to 
the corporation, and the man might have saved himself. 

Long before any lawsuit was thought of in this case, the 
patient was brought to me by his doctor for examination. 
The only tangible evidence of spinal cord disease then found 
was an inequality in the tendon reflexes of the two sides, 
i. e., the jerking of the foot when the tendon is tapped just 
below the patella or knee cap. This was evidence, if not 
proof, of something wrong with the cord, and I had recorded 
this in my notes of the case, which I was allowed to consult 
on the witness stand. There were numerous complaints of 
pain in the back and elsewhere — which was, of course, 
wholly subjective, and not demonstrable by any physician, 
but had to be taken on faith in the word of the patient. 

The plaintiff's counsel* was an intense, alert, highly 
equipped fighting lawyer; his opponent was no match for 
him, and failed to get as much for his case out of his cross- 
examinations of the plaintiff's experts as he was entitled to. 
His chief medical expert was one of my very erudite friends, 
who knew vastly more about the nervous system than I did. 

"George W. Kretzinger. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 193 

He had examined the plaintiff, had subjected him to many- 
tests, and reached the conclusion that the man was sham- 
ming. But unfortunately his testimony for convincing effect 
on the jury was marred by two circumstances: one that he 
seemed a more than willing witness, and allowed himself 
to make a few statements that seemed gratuitous and 
prejudiced; and though he gave a fine scientific lecture 
on the functions of the spinal cord, he shot over the heads 
of the jury, and they believed he was a witness who was in 
league with a soulless corporation to abuse a man who was 
down. The other circumstance was a wrong interpretation 
of a physical sign. He had tested the plaintiff's hand grasp 
by a machine that registers the pressure, called a dynamom- 
eter. The man was asked to squeeze the thing with all his 
might, and seemed to be doing so, but the pressure shown 
was very low. Then the doctor felt of the man's forearm 
while he made the test, and found that the muscles on the 
inside or flexor side of the arm were not perceptibly harder 
than the opposing or extensor muscles on the outside, and 
jumped to the conclusion that the man was setting the two 
groups of muscles against each other, in order to deceive. But 
it was not and could not be true, and the doctor had failed 
to analyze the phenomenon or test it on his own arm. The 
extensor muscles were hard because they were holding the 
wrist straight, at extension; it was a condition indispensable 
to the firm hand grasp — everybody does it. He told this at 
the end of his testimony, just before a noon adjournment. 
On the opening of court after lunch the attorney for the 
plaintiff asked permission to recall me to the stand, to be 
asked one or two questions. Counsel for the defense evi- 
dently thought it was a harmless suggestion, and consented. 
I was asked my opinion of the theory about the forearm, 
and replied that at first thought it seemed correct, but that 
a moment's test with my own arm showed it to be erroneous, 
and I was illustrating with my arm, when the judge, the 
venerable Joseph E. Gary, who had been trying to read a 



194 THE MARCHING YEARS 

Spanish law book and follow the trial at the same time, 
broke in sharply with: "Stop! What was that question? 
Let the reporter read it and his answer." The question and 
answer were read, and then the judge said, "It's wholly 
improper. Strike it all out. " "Then I withdraw the question, " 
said plaintiff's counsel demurely. This kept the point out of 
the record, but the jury had heard it, and were experimenting 
with their own forearms and fists. It seems that at that 
point in the trial this testimony was "wholly improper," 
while it might have been admissible at another time. This 
was one of the lawyer's sharp manceuvers to reach the 
jury — he doubtless knew it was improper all the time. 

In my own expert testimony I remembered my early 
instruction, and refused to volunteer a word of evidence for 
the plaintiff. What I swore to was of great value to him, 
but it had to be drawn out by questions, and seemed to be a 
trifle reluctant; and I was painstakingly polite to the counsel 
for the defense — even tried to help him to a better under- 
standing of his side of the case. And the jury believed me. 

The Judge Gary who tried this case was a unique char- 
acter. He served on the bench continuously over forty 
years, and was still in service at the time of his death. 
He was a shortish, stocky man, with a smooth face and serious 
countenance; quiet and gentle in manner, of domestic 
tastes and a retiring disposition. Through all his service 
he was popular with litigants, lawyers and jurors because of 
an unusual combination of personal traits and methods of 
conducting court. He was manifestly fair and just to all, 
and he seemed to be wholly without bias — he was a real 
judge, and not merely an advocate on the bench; he expe- 
dited business, was not conscious overmuch of his own 
dignity and prerogatives; he found it unnecessary to defend 
these by fining lawyers for contempt, and otherwise. It was 
said of him that he never fined a lawyer in his life. When 
counsel got to abusing each other he might say: "Quit your 



THE MARCHING YEARS 195 

quarreling, and go on with your case!" That was always 
effective. 

He was a great student of law, and was so well armed 
that he could make vast numbers of off-hand decisions from 
the bench without being reversed for them by a higher 
court. In the hotly contested trial of the "anarchists" for 
murder, that continued many weeks, he made hundreds of 
such decisions, with a rapidity that sometimes seemed 
flippant, yet he was sustained in every particular by the 
higher courts. With all these wonderful qualities he had a 
streak of waggish humor that was the most spontaneous 
thing imaginable. He rarely smiled, and more rarely laughed, 
on the bench, but was liable on some provocation to break 
out in such unexpected drollery that people in his court 
room waited in smiling anticipation of it. But through it 
all he never lost his altogether serious dignity, or the respect 
of the public. Probably no other judge in Chicago could 
have done what he did without losing both. I had always 
supposed that he was unconscious of how laughable some of 
his sayings were, until he made a speech in my hearing, at 
a dinner given by the Chicago Bar Association to Mr. Justice 
Holmes. He revealed there some consciousness of how his 
sayings affected the public, for in his talk he used the 
quotation from a forgotten somebody: "I never dare to be 
as funny as I can." We guessed that he was applying the 
saying to himself. 

Many stories are current among the long time frequenters 
of his court, of the droll and unexpected sayings of Judge 
Gary. Some of them have perhaps grown in the repetition, 
but many of them were funny enough at the beginning. 
Here are two that are well vouched for: He made a quick 
ruling from the bench one day, and the lawyer who felt the 
adverse effect of it said: "Why, your Honor, a week ago you 
made a ruling in an analogous case that was diametrically 
opposite to your ruling now." And the judge retorted 
instantly: "Oh, that was before election." As a matter of 



196 THE MARCHING YEARS 

fact he had been, during that week, re-elected for another 
term. 

On another occasion a young lawyer had tried a case 
before him without a jury, and it was decided against him. 
He was much cast down by his defeat, and asked if he might 
talk with the judge in his chambers. "Certainly," the 
jurist said; "come in and we'll talk it over." The conversa- 
tion soon satisfied the young man that all the arguments 
he had presented to the court had been considered in making 
the decision; and in deep despondency he exclaimed: "I 
don't know what to say to my clients down home. I told 
them I was sure to win this case for them." "Oh," said the 
judge comfortingly, "tell them that the court was a damn 
fool." 

Once on a time in Chicago I was called into court to 
give testimony that was very unpleasant. The first question 
was: "Do you know Mr. R. S.?" I did. Then: "Are you 
familiar with his general reputation for honesty and relia- 
bility?" "Yes." "What is his general reputation for hon- 
esty and reliability?" "It is bad." "That's all," said 
the lawyer. The opposing counsel in cross-examination 
asked: "What facts and events do you know of in the man's 
life that led you to say that his reputation is bad?" After 
hesitating long enough to draw the gaze of everybody in 
the room to my embarrassment, I answered very deliberately: 
"It is hardly proper for me to answer that question. My 
direct testimony was solely as to the man's general reputa- 
tion, and I cannot properly be interrogated as to specific 
instances. You are too good a lawyer to expect me to answer 
the question." Really, he was not a good lawyer; and may 
not have known the rule of evidence referred to. He appealed 
to the court to compel me to answer; but the court sustained 
me, and I left the witness stand. 

The question of privileged communications to medical 
men, as excusing them from answering, has led at times 
to serious situations in court. Most states of our Union 



THE MARCHING YEARS 197 

excuse such witnesses from divulging facts about a patient 
that were learned from him in order to prescribe for him. 
But some states have no such regulations, and a doctor 
may be required to disclose the most confidential and 
the most sacred facts about him, exactly as he would 
state any other fact. Illinois was a few years ago such a 
state — and may be so still. In such states physicians some- 
times refuse to divulge in court such communications as they 
believe ought by sound ethics to be privileged, and risk being 
sent to jail for contempt. In a few instances they have been 
sentenced to jail, to serve until they purged themselves of 
contempt by answering. But I do not know of the sentence 
having been actually carried out; the doctor usually escapes 
this by either concluding that he has done his duty by 
his protest, and then answering the question; or by a 
considerate lawyer saving him by withdrawing the question. 

In rare instances the doctor is relieved of embarrassment 
by the consent of the patient's counsel. I had this expe- 
rience in a Chicago court a few years ago. The plaintiff 
in a damage suit against a street railway was an elderly 
woman who had been a patient of mine fifteen or more years 
before. She swore in her cross-examination that I had been 
one of her physicians, and I was sent for at once by the 
defense, and happened to be found in Chicago. 

The first questions identified my professional character; 
then, did I know the plaintiff and was she ever a patient of 
mine, and when, and for how long? These questions were, 
of course, readily answered. Next came the question: "For 
what disease did you treat her?" And the answer: "That 
question cannot be answered, as it calls for a fact of the 
strictest confidence between physician and patient." While 
the counsel for the railroad was telling the judge — Chetlain 
— that he thought he was entitled to an answer to the ques- 
tion, the lawyer for the woman shouted: "Let him answer; 
we don't object." This, of course, lifted the embargo. 
But the judge, who was a long-time acquaintance of mine, 



198 THE MARCHING YEARS 

leaned over and said in an undertone: "Under the law, 
doctor, you would have been obliged to answer, anyway. " 
My theory of the willingness of the plaintiff's attorney to 
have me answer is that my unrelieved refusal might lead the 
jury to think something awful must have been the matter 
with her, and so harm his case. Really there had been 
nothing embarrassing in her sickness, and my refusal was 
solely on the ground that, without her consent, actual or 
implied, I had no right to talk about her case. As a matter 
of fact I fear my answers did harm her case, for it was wander- 
ing neuralgia that she had had; and that was what she had 
set up in this case as the result of her fall from a car two 
years before. 

After acquiring a village lot, and building a house in Sierra 
Madre, and coming into possession of a few shares of the 
stock of the Sierra Madre Water Company, I soon found 
myself president of that corporation. 

The company and Lucky Baldwin were partners in 
the ownership of the mountain water that supplied both. 
Each was entitled to and received one-half the water that 
came out of a tunnel in Little Santa Anita Canon, near by. 
The water supply was too small, and it was proposed that we 
should join in drilling another tunnel at a different place in 
the canon. It was necessary to buy the land on which it 
was to be located, and Baldwin refused to join in this, but was 
willing to join in the expense of drilling. The company 
then bought the land and determined to drill on its own 
account, and claim whatever water was found. 

Out of this situation grew three lawsuits. All of these 
were won by the company finally. Only one of them was 
directly with Baldwin, and that was to test the ownership 
of the water from the new-bought land. All the suits 
furnished us with both amusing and vexatious experiences. 
The main suit was started by Baldwin after some preliminary 
fencing by both sides. In due time our new tunnel was 
flowing quite a stream of water, perhaps two miner's inches. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 199 

(A miner's inch is what will flow through a square hole one 
inch in diameter in a thin board, with a head or depth of 
four inches of water behind and above it. It means some- 
thing over thirteen thousand gallons daily.) This tunnel 
water was flowing into the canon, and in the darkness of 
one night Baldwin's agent connected this stream with the 
supply pipe to the dividing box, by means of a sheet iron 
pipe. Thus the water mixed with that from the old tunnel, 
to be divided and sent on to the respective owners. If we 
allowed this pipe to remain without protest it would be a 
confession of the right of Baldwin to half of the new water. 
When this high-handed thing occurred I was on a visit 
to the Grand Canon of the Colorado with Prof. Walter 
Haines, of Chicago, and Gen. Corbin, of the Army. On 
my return some of the directors of the company were at 
the train to take me to the waterworks. Arriving there, I 
took a pickax and tore up and smashed the offensive pipe, 
and allowed the water again to flow down the canon. The 
next day a new pipe was laid by the agent, and at the same 
moment we were enjoined from interfering with it until 
further order of the court. This turn pleased us, for it 
brought the issue into court for a fair adjudication. 

Months afterward I learned that the Baldwin people 
had, the day after my pickax episode, besought the prosecut- 
ing attorney, Mr. James McLachlan, to cause my arrest 
for smashing their pipe, and he had refused. 

In one of the lawsuits we had an amusing experience 
with the senior opposing counsel over a word I used in my 
testimony in cross-examination. It showed that lawyers (or 
attorneys) as well as doctors, are sometimes reluctant to 
reveal their ignorance in open court. In one of my answers I 
used the word patulous in describing an unglazed cement 
water main, to indicate that it was clear for the carrying of 
water, and not choked with roots or other substances. It 
was evident in an instant that the lawyer was ignorant of 
the meaning of the word, for he asked me a dozen other 



200 THE MARCHING YEARS 

questions to try to find out its meaning without directly 
asking me to explain it — meanwhile the judge and his audi- 
ence in the court room were smiling at the lawyer's attempts 
at hiding what he more and more revealed as he went on. 
After he had finished his efforts, our attorney quietly asked 
me: "Doctor, will you kindly tell the court what you mean 
by the word patulous}" I explained, and the court — the 
late Judge Wade — began to giggle, then adjourned the hear- 
ing and rushed into his chambers to explode with laughter. 

It was in one of the minor suits that a junior member of 
the opposing counsel, Mr. Charles Monroe — afterward for 
many years a judge — perpetrated a practical joke upon our 
attorney and me by continuing an inane and useless cross- 
examination until he was sure I had missed my train home 
to Sierra Madre. Our lawyer had asked him in open court 
if he could not terminate his cross-examination, so that I 
might not miss the last train. But there was a special later 
train that neither of them knew of, which took me home. 

The judge and I have many times since laughed over this 
incident, as well as over another joke or bluff of his, some 
years later. This was at a fiesta parade in Los Angeles, 
and I, with two ladies, was an early comer to a grand stand 
to view the parade. Soon after we had taken our seats the 
judge and his wife entered and sat down two seats in front 
of us. Then two young men ambled in with glances of 
suspicion and took seats far down in front. Then came a 
belated police officer, whose business it was to keep every- 
body out who could not show a ticket. He hurried to us 
and we showed our tickets; then the judge called the officer 
to him rather urgently, and told him that the two young 
men down in front were evidently there without tickets. 
The officer hurried down and spoke to them in an undertone, 
and they sheepishly walked out. Seeing all this, I leaned 
over, and said: "Judge, I see that you are still looking after 
the conduct of this community." His retort was: "Sh! I 
haven't any tickets myself." Then I recalled that the offi- 



THE MARCHING YEARS 201 

cer's attention had been so completely diverted that he had 
not asked if the judge himself had tickets. By this time 
he was at the gate inspecting the tickets of the oncoming 
crowd, and had probably forgotten Monroe, or remembered 
him only as one who had helped him in the performance 
of his duty. 

My first duty as president of the water company was to 
see Mr. Baldwin and try to persuade him to join us amicably 
in buying the land for water exploration. I saw him one 
evening at his house at Santa Anita, but he was adamant, 
and refused to yield. When our major case was on trial 
before Judge Lucien Shaw (since then for many years on the 
State Supreme Bench) Baldwin swore positively that at my 
visit in his house the only matter discussed was the question 
of joint drilling for water — not a word about land. I was 
sworn immediately afterward, and denied his statement in toto 
on the point referred to. Then Attorney Monroe took me for 
cross-examination. He asked me about the visit, the num- 
ber of persons present, and who they were. Then he asked, 
"What were they doing in the room?" The answer was, 
"Several of them, including Mr. Baldwin, were playing some 
game around a small table." "What was the game?" "I 
don't know, sir; they had cards and a lot of little disks, 
of bone or ivory, but I don't know what the game was." 
There was a concert of laughter in the courtroom, and I was 
excused. As I came down from the witness chair Mr. Bald- 
win, who had been sitting in front of me, grasped my hand 
and said: "You were right, and I was wrong — I had for- 
gotten about it — you were right. " 

Once a degenerate scoundrel was arrested for a felony in 
Pasadena. Certain medical examinations were required in 
the case, and I made them and testified in the preliminary 
examination before a magistrate, who sent the man to jail to 
await trial in the Superior Court. My testimony was taken 
down and typed. The trial before a jury occurred many 
months afterward, and, of course, I was a witness. In the 



202 THE MARCHING YEARS 

cross-examination the lawyer had before him what appeared 
to be a transcript of my earlier testimony, from which he 
was evidently checking up my testimony as I proceeded. 
At one point (apparently reading) he said: "Doctor, did you 
not in your former testimony say" thus and so? The 
answer was a very positive no. "Do you think you can 
remember all the things you said at that examination?" 
"No, sir; I don't pretend to remember everything I then 
said." "Then how do you know you didn't say the thing 
I have stated?" "Because, sir; that would have been un- 
true; I would have then known it was not true, as I now 
know it to be false — and I was then, as now, under two obli- 
gations to tell the truth: my own inclination and my oath." 
That finished him, and the cross-examination ended there. 

This chapter would not be complete without some ref- 
erence to the Claypole case, which concerned our professional 
office for many months, and was terminated by an act of 
the Supreme Court of California. This was at beginning a 
case of the application of Dr. Edith Jane Claypole to the 
State Board of Medical Examiners for a license to practice 
in the state. It ended by being a case before the Supreme 
Court of the State, of Claypole versus the State Board, in which 
all the members of the Board were cited to appear before 
the court en banc on a certain day to show cause why they 
should not be compelled to issue the license asked for. 

The attorney for the Board, after this citation by the 
court, it was reported, hurriedly sought the assistance of 
the Attorney General of the State in the defense of the Board 
before the court, as was his duty under the law. That 
officer, on learning the facts, promptly told the attorney 
that he had no case, and that the only thing to do was to 
issue the license, as the applicant was clearly en titled, to it. 
Whether or not this happened exactly as thus stated, it is 
of record that the Board's attorney asked one of the attorneys 
for the plaintiff, the late Edward C. Bailey, for a delay of 
one week to allow the Board to issue the license; and that 



THE MARCHING YEARS 203 

the court was asked in open session for that delay for the 
purpose named, the two attorneys being present. The 
time was granted, and before the end of the week the doctor 
had her license. 

Dr. Claypole was a woman of great character, talents and 
education; a fine pathologist and microscopist. She lived 
with an aunt near our home in Pasadena. They were 
greatly prized friends of Mrs. Bridge and myself. She had 
spent an hour or two each day in our office as a pathologist 
for two years before her graduation in medicine at the 
University of Southern California. She was for seven years 
continuously thereafter our regular office pathologist, and for 
a part of that time also the pathologist to the Pasadena 
Hospital. She resigned from our service, and went to Berkeley 
to live with her twin sister, Mrs. Agnes Claypole Moody, 
Ph.D., and to do research work, for which she was highly 
capable, in the State University, where she became an assist- 
ant to the professor of pathology. 

When she was graduated in medicine she had no intention 
of practicing, but desired a license as a legal right. After 
her examinations were successfully over — and she had to 
take a second examination in pathology while standing high 
in all other branches (a fate that befell several others of 
her class of applicants) — the Board made a condition that 
before a license could issue she would have to go back 
to her Alma Mater and attend three months more to make 
up a required four years of college study. This she naturally 
resented, and she refused to comply. Her Alma Mater was 
satisfied with her time, credentials and examinations, and 
had graduated her — and she knew she was within her rights 
under the law. I advised her to stand upon her rights, and 
proffered the services of my personal attorneys,* and agreed 
to pay any expenses in the case, on condition she would 
not worry about it. She agreed to the condition, and justi- 
fied the compact through the months. 

*Walpole Wood and E. C. Bailey, of Los Angeles. 



204 THE MARCHING YEARS 

After correspondence between the secretary and members 
of the Board and myself — some of it, on my own part, 
evidently aggravating to the Board, for I regarded their 
attitude as outrageous — the latter issued a notice to Dr. 
Claypole to appear before the Board in San Francisco on a 
certain day and show cause why a license should not be 
refused her. On the advice of the attorneys she did not 
appear on the day named, but Attorney Bailey appeared 
for her, with certain documents which he presented with 
arguments. He showed by the law in force at the time 
of her graduation that neither the college nor the Board 
could require four years of college time, but only three, 
provided the candidate had earned an academic degree at 
a college. He presented evidence of two degrees, a diploma 
of Bachelor of Philosophy from Buchtel College and one of 
Master of Science from Cornell University; and insisted that 
she thus had overtime to her credit, and was entitled to her 
license. 

The Board on the same day voted — unanimously, it was 
said — to refuse her a license. As soon as an official certificate 
of this action of the Board, over the signature of its secretary, 
was received, the attorneys presented their case to the 
Supreme Court, and promptly got the order already referred 
to — with the result described. 

There was never any legal ground for the attitude of the 
Board; and the wonder was that they should adopt a policy 
that was bound to come to grief. But the Board was appar- 
ently under the domination in this case of a single member, 
who had a peculiar temperament and unusual animosities. 
The wonder is that the rest of the members could agree by 
vote to an outrageous act, wantonly violating the clear 
rights of a citizen, when the act was illegal to even a lay mind. 
It is unthinkable that the members could have had any spite 
against Dr. Claypole personally, yet there must have been a 
strong psychological reason for their actions. One such was 
probably the fact that they had already declared individually 



THE MARCHING YEARS 205 

that no license should issue until the candidate served her 
sentence of three months — it was hard to retract at the argu- 
ments of a lawyer. Even this intensely human weakness 
seems hardly a sufficient explanation. I can think of only 
one other, namely, that the members may have regarded as 
discourteous some of the letters written them in Dr. C.'s 
behalf, phrases in some of my own letters particularly. If 
they judged some of the language to be intense and undiplo- 
matic, they were evidently correct. But to have punished 
her in order to rebuke me was most unchivalrous — and the 
effort failed.* 



* After the case was finally won, the attorneys had the license tastefully framed 
by the side of the first page of their brief to the Supreme Court, giving the names of 
the judges, the attorneys and of the Board, and presented it to the doctor as a trophy 
of triumph. But she was magnanimously unresentful, and I think never displayed 
the picture. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

SECULAR PURSUITS. 

IT was necessary in the Bridge family all through its 
history as I know it, to consider constantly the needs and 

value of money for the necessities of existence. All my 
forbears had to be industrious and economical; our New 
England experience and much that followed it led to a keen 
appreciation of the value of a dollar. My own slow acquisi- 
tion of a paying professional practice was a continuation of 
that experience. 

There were among my early air castles varying Utopian 
schemes that would fill my purse and give me a bank account, 
so that the hard daily grind would be unnecessary. I was 
then too immature to see the value, for development and 
health of body and mind, of steady daily labor that is effec- 
tive and that provides the essential needs of modest living. 

Later, when I learned of easy methods that had made 
some of my acquaintances rich, the temptation came to take 
an occasional flyer, but three potent forces prevented. One 
was the purely speculative or gambling character of the 
schemes; and gambling or plunging had early become to me 
a very questionable if not sinful practice — to be always 
doubted and usually shunned. Another influence was my 
early admiration for stability, perseverance in work and 
business, and consequent success, as illustrated by many men 
within my knowledge. This was a growing feeling as time 
went on, and made it natural for me to take my cue from men 
of affairs who understood their business, and pursued it in 
storm and sunshine, rather than to follow the plungers, who 
regarded such business men as old-fashioned and not to be 
imitated. 

There were plentiful examples among my friends, pro- 
fessional and otherwise, of men watching the stock and grain 

[206] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 207 

markets, who had small knowledge of the causes of the rise 
and fall of prices, and very juvenile sense to take advantage 
of such knowledge as they had. They variously gained 
and lost by their speculations — and nearly always failed 
finally and were completely snuffed out, with only their 
experience for their gain. And while this experience tended 
to after-safety in business affairs, it rarely helped much in 
mental satisfaction with themselves until, through years of 
slow success in more patient methods, they saw prosperity 
coming as their justification. 

Another influence for caution in business lines was my 
intense preoccupation in the professional work of study, 
practice and teaching, which sent me to bed nightly with a 
feeling of unfinished tasks. There was no time and little 
temptation to follow pursuits of chance in secular affairs; 
and it was easy to put surplus earnings — when finally and 
slowly such things came to be a reality — into certain of the 
safer investments in bonds and mortgages which were recom- 
mended by people of experience, and by which I had seen 
some of my friends become forehanded. 

I am quite aware of the popular theory of business men, 
that professional people are generally gullible and amateurish 
in secular matters, and there is some ground for the notion. 
If a medical man acquires a fortune by secular business it is 
often a matter of smiling amusement and wonder among his 
public that such luck could happen. But there is no reason 
— and there never was any reason — why one may not dis- 
cover the basis of successful business by observing the 
history, the successes and the failures, of dozens of business 
men whose careers are open to the easy vision of their 
neighbors. The rules of commerce that usually bring success 
are few, easily learned and of easy application; and any 
professional man can learn them without difficulty and with- 
out disturbing his vocational pursuits — learn them as an 
avocation of both pleasure and profit. 



208 THE MARCHING YEARS 

It is true that many such men refuse to follow the rules 
when they have had the chance to know them, because the 
rules seem too simple, or because they fancy there must be 
some short-cut, some legerdemain for making quick and sure 
money, which the mass of business men have been too dull 
or too indolent to grasp. But this is a weakness that is not 
confined to professional folk, albeit belonging to many of 
them. And it cannot be admitted for a moment that there 
is anything in the studies or labor of a profession that tends 
to blind the eyes of persons of sense to the habits in business 
of people all about them. Any person of average perspicacity 
can easily learn why men succeed in business, and why they 
fail. It involves merely the faculty of observation and the 
use of common sense; and if someone claims he can demon- 
strate that the professions are short on the commodity of 
common sense, the answer is, if that be true, that then it is 
evidence that the professions are sought by many persons 
with a dearth of the sanest sense in the world's affairs, 
rather than that professional study and work dwarf or de- 
moralize the judgment. And I deny that a majority of 
medical men belong to this class, however it may be with the 
other professions. Nor is it true that, following the safe 
rules of business, and avoiding the speculative impulses that 
are common to most people of both sexes, the devotion of a 
moderate recreative attention to business interests need ever 
lessen one's professional capacity or success. And, in the 
cases where success in business has led men gradually to 
restrict their professional activities or even abandon them 
altogether, the very pecuniary success may enable them to 
give more help to the larger things of the profession, not 
only for its benefit, but for that of the public at large — an 
example of a vocation changing places with an avocation. 

In the early days of the last decade of the last century 
petroleum was discovered in the city of Los Angeles by Mr. 
E. L. Doheny. In some of his explorations here he was 
joined by the late Mr. C. A. Canfield, a former mining 



THE MARCHING YEARS 209 

partner of his. In a short time some dozens of wells were 
drilled inside the city limits, some of them in choice residence 
districts. Within a few years the number had increased to 
hundreds, and the city began to take legal steps to restrict 
them. It was a narrow field; the wells were relatively 
shallow, and none of them produced much oil, although a 
few were pumped for many years. Most of the producers 
lost money in the enterprise, and no one made a great deal. 

These two self-developed chiefs in the business soon 
sought and found other oil fields in California, far away 
from the city, and amassed fortunes from them. The oil 
excitement grew; many rivals entered the business, and the 
state which had produced a little oil in a few spots for many 
years became a considerable factor in the oil producing world. 
Still later it became a very large factor, and at times was the 
largest producing state in the Union. 

I had invested small sums in the stock of two or three oil 
companies, along in the last years of the old and the beginning 
of the new century, and sold them out later at a profit. One 
little investment (of $500) came properly to grief, and was a 
total loss. Thereby it taught a wholesome lesson. The 
company was a so-called wild-cat affair; was organized by 
people who knew nothing about the oil business, and started 
its drilling on a patch of leased land where it was guessed 
that oil might be found. The twenty-five thousand dollars 
put up by the stockholders was soon gone into a "dry hole," 
and the enterprise was abandoned. The lesson to me was 
that if one wished to go into the oil business it ought to be 
with people who understood it, and who had a reputation for 
success at it. Thereupon I began to buy stock in the oldest 
and most stable oil company in the state. The amount 
purchased was as large as my means and my credit at the 
bank would allow. It paid fair dividends for several years, 
and was finally sold to raise money for enterprises in Mexico, 
at more than double what it had cost. 



210 THE MARCHING YEARS 

Doheny and Canfield organized the Mexican Petroleum 
Company (a California corporation) in the early months of 
this century, to develop an oil field they had purchased in 
Mexico, some forty miles west of Tampico, on the Mexican 
Central Railroad — a tract of 450,000 acres, more or less, on 
a portion of which extensive and active oil exudes were 
found. The company was capitalized for $10,000,000, and 
the work of developing an oil field in a jungle country was 
actively begun. I invested $5,000 in the stock at the begin- 
ning. Mr. E. P. Ripley, president of the Santa Fe Railroad, 
was the first president, and Mr. Doheny was vice-president 
and general manager; the late Mr. A. P. Maginnis was 
borrowed from his work with the Santa Fe Railroad and sent 
to Mexico to be the temporary superintendent of the work. 
Mr. Ripley soon resigned as president, Mr. Doheny taking 
his place. Mr. Canfield was vice-president. 

The drillings early discovered oil in moderate quantities. 
But soon it became evident that a large amount of money 
would be required to produce here a successful oil business 
on a large scale, and that it would be necessary to have on 
the ground a manager who was experienced in the business, 
and who had energy and efficiency in a high degree. Mr. 
Herbert George Wylie was selected for this work, and 
under his hand the great development and success of the 
property was carried forward. 

In 1903 I became a member of the Board of Directors of 
the company, and in 1904 first visited the property, a few 
weeks after the first gusher well had been brought in on Easter 
Sunday of that year. Such visits were repeated with in* 
creasing frequency from this time on until the beginning of 
the Mexican revolutions in 1911. By June, 1905, we had 
begun to sell oil to the Mexican Central Railroad under a 
new contract (an earlier contract had been repudiated by a 
new management of the railroad), and the company was a 
prosperous concern in the full sense of the word. Money was 
coming into its coffers in a very encouraging way. It had 



THE MARCHING YEARS 211 

previously marketed some of its product in the form of asphal- 
tum, through a paving company that a few of the directors 
had formed for this purpose, which was operating in the 
City of Mexico, and later in other cities of that country. 
The product of the wells was a heavy oil containing a high 
percentage of asphaltum; and this branch of the business 
was greatly increased afterward, and the product was shipped 
abroad in commercial quantities. This trade grew and was 
fairly profitable, until it was destroyed by the revolution and 
the general demoralization of the country that continued 
for many years. 

During the year 1905 the evidence was accumulating that 
fifty and more miles south of Tampico, along the Gulf coast, 
and reaching to the Tuxpan River and beyond, was a greater 
oil field than any of us had ever seen. Doheny and Canfield 
determined to try and get control of that field. They had 
already purchased some land in the northern portion of it. 
They made their desires known to the directors of the com- 
pany, and gave the latter the opportunity to take over the 
enterprise. But the stockholders had been several times 
assessed on their stock to raise money for the upbuilding of 
the business, and the directors feared to undertake any new 
scheme, and so declined. 

Then these pioneers took steps to enter the southern 
field in a large way independently. This was in January, 
1906. Their plan was to form a syndicate of four men, 
including themselves, to acquire holdings and build up an 
organization for the development of the field and the market- 
ing of its product; and they invited me to become one of the 
number. The other, afterward chosen, was Mr. Ripley. 
The two novices in the petroleum business were to bear 
minor parts of the expense; the two masters of the science 
and art of it shouldered the major burdens. 

The situation presented for me a parting of the ways. 
Up to that time my little acquisitions in oil interests had not 
been allowed to interfere with my professional work, and at 



212 THE MARCHING YEARS 

this time the practice was large and exacting. I had spent 
six weeks or more each autumn at Rush College, lecturing to 
the senior class. This was a great pleasure; and the practice, 
large as it was, was carried easily, for I was perfectly well and 
enjoyed every day of it. If I accepted the invitation of these 
friends it would mean giving a large amount of time to secular 
affairs, also the end of college work in Chicago, and the 
gradual cutting down to the vanishing point of the pro- 
fessional line, and making it an avocation instead of the 
absorbing purpose in life, as it had been for many years. 
The pull of the proposal was strong because it meant a cer- 
tainty of success in material things for us, and a great addition 
to the wealth of the world without hurting anybody — unless 
it might finally hurt us through the vanity of success. The 
regret was that it meant also the termination of another work 
that had become successful beyond all expectation at begin- 
ning, and that had brought joy in the doing. It was a strain 
of soul to decide the question, and although the plunge was 
made quickly, there was a change that had to come gradually. 
It took time to get used to so radical a shift. To agree to 
join the syndicate and go to Mexico with my friends to get 
titles to a great oil field was easy, and this I did promptly. 
My family and near friends agreed that it was best. But 
it took time to wean me from the habit — that seemed 
a century old — of attending to the pains and physical perils 
of many people, and of being thus a servant of the 
public. It took time to regard my profession as a great 
institution which, though I should cease to work at it actively, 
might come to be regarded with an interest of even broader 
scope and catholicity than ever before. That change finally 
came about with that wider interest, and a sense of satis- 
faction with it all. 

After making my decision there was never a moment's 
hesitation; my senior associates, themselves full of effective 
power, had my time, attention and energy from that time on 



THE MARCHING YEARS 213 

for anything that came to my hand to advance the enter- 
prise, and the work went forward steadily. 

In that year I made with Mr. Doheny and others four 
journeys to Mexico, remaining sometimes for weeks, traveling 
on horseback, by water and rail, negotiating, exploring, 
arguing, learning; and having some adventures and dangers. 
We went to New York twice and to London once, and were 
"gone from home three-quarters of the year. Mr. Canfield 
was an invalid much of the time during those months; and 
Mr. Ripley with his railroad burdens could give us only an 
occasional consultation. He never went to Mexico with us. 

The oil lands that we were after — known as the Huasteca 
region, from the name of the Indians who lived there — were 
held largely in leaseholds by parties who had gone there 
years before in search of asphaltum for road making in 
America. The asphaltum lay in great beds of hard sub- 
stance on the surface, the result of ages of evaporation from 
the oil exudes that were still active in spots. One pioneer 
and successful street paver* in our country held many of 
these leases, which in their original form carried the rights 
to asphaltum on the surface as well as other substances, but 
not petroleum — so dull was the American mind in general to 
the fact that everywhere and always asphaltum means 
previous petroleum. Someone had told this leaseholder 
that if the leases could be amended so as to include the oil 
and gas beneath the surface they would in the future be 
worth many-fold more; and he had sent down agents to 
negotiate new leases with this provision. Even then, neither 
he nor his engineers had any conception of what the exudes 
of oil on the surface in many places meant in ultimate values; 
probably our own high estimate of these values fell far short 
of the reality. 

We acquired all of the leases of the party referred to, and 
several besides, and purchased some lands outright during 
that year. Subsequently other large tracts were purchased, 

*A. L. Barber. 



214 THE MARCHING YEARS 

and other tracts leased for long periods for a cash rental, and 
directly from the owners; never from the Government. 

The country of the Huasteca region is often called jungle, 
but it is such only in spots, the major part of the land being 
cleared, and small tracts under cultivation in a primitive 
way. Some of the jungle regions are very dense and almost 
impossible to penetrate except by cutting a brecha through 
them; a thing usually done with a machete. The farm houses 
are rude, often thatched, their walls of adobe or mud 
plastered on loose bamboo wattle-work, and the floors of earth. 
A few of the houses are better built, with wooden floors, 
and offer more of the comforts of life. In our exploratory 
horseback journeys through the country we tried to stop for 
food and lodgings at the better of the country houses, but 
were not always able to do so. We slept often on cots in 
the main room of the house, sometimes on a porch, and at 
times, when the weather allowed, out in the open. 

Most of the highways were bridle roads — only occasionally 
in the country was it possible to use wheeled vehicles. 
Even if the streams were bridged and the roads graded it 
would in many places be difficult to use wagons, owing to 
the steepness of the hills. The houses are mostly on hill-tops, 
as though built there for protection (or to catch better the 
sea breezes), which was probably the case in earlier times. 
The villages are mostly on the higher elevations also. At 
first thought the hill roads suggest that the people who 
planned them had never discovered that it is often no farther 
around the hill than it is over it; but the early Indians 
doubtless knew their business. 

These rural people were almost invariably kind and 
obliging. They saluted when we met, total strangers, on 
the road, with a gentle "a Dios" — meaning a commendation 
"to God." They gave us the best they had to eat, and 
served it as well as they could. There were eggs, chicken, 
tortillas and frijoles nearly always, and coffee with brown, 
coarse sugar and sometimes milk. The eggs were often 



THE MARCHING YEARS 215 

cooked in hot lard or other fat, as we cook doughnuts, 
which is an excellent way; and the dark beans — frijoles — are 
cooked there more and better than anywhere else in my 
experience. There was usually piquante, a hot condiment. 
The table utensils were few, sometimes not a spoon, knife or 
fork to be seen, except one big ladle. The natives feed 
themselves deftly by dipping up frijoles, eggs and chopped 
meat either with their fingers or with pieces of tortillas 
folded like a little scoop, the scoop being eaten with the 
food it carries. We found difficulty in doing this ideally; 
and once in my embarrassment I asked for a spoon, and saw 
the host and hostess exchange glances of surprise. Then 
one of them disappeared and soon returned with one very 
old iron teaspoon, one-half of the bowl of which was deeply 
covered with rust. At that meal Mr. Canfield had produced 
a pocket combination of knife, fork and spoon, which he 
unlimbered, and gave two others besides himself a decided 
advantage over me. A mile from that spot four years later 
we brought in a well that in eight and a half years had flowed 
some 70,000,000 barrels of oil that was saved, pumped to 
our terminal near Tampico, and sold. 

In our journeys to the Huasteca field it was necessary to 
travel at least fifty miles south of Tampico by water — 
through a canal a few miles long into the shallow Lake 
Tamiahua — before taking horses for the interior. We went 
by gasoline launches, usually rather unreliable, rented af- 
fairs, operated by Mexicans who knew little of the best 
channel through the shallow lake, to avoid being either 
grounded or caught in vast fields of sea-weeds that would 
soon put our propellers out of business. We several times 
had these calamities, and spent hours — half a night some- 
times — in getting ourselves free. These journeys were long 
and wearisome — often vexatious — until we began to have 
good launches of our own with competent Mexican pilots. 

Lake Tamiahua is a gentle sea except when a fierce north 
wind sweeps the length of it; then it shows its teeth. Messrs. 



216 THE MARCHING YEARS 

Doheny and Canfield were once caught in such a spiteful 
squall when crossing the lake in a small launch with a hesi- 
tating gas engine and a frightened pilot. Nothing but their 
own efforts saved them from destruction. 

On this lake one mild morning I was rushing south in a 
good launch called the "Silver King," with a very competent 
pilot, on the way to meet one of my associates who was sick 
and coming north from Tuxpan. One of our employes, Mr. 
Finley, was also on board. As we were passing the mouth 
of the Cucharas River, about a mile off the west shore of the 
lake, our port bow struck a big root of a submerged tree 
that some freshet had washed out of the river. It stove a 
hole in the boat below the water line, and she took water 
rapidly. The tree root remained in the hole for a time and 
held the bow up and prevented it from sinking, while the 
stern was submerged, but soon the waves rocked the boat 
free, and she sank in six feet of water, with the port gunwale 
forward out of water. 

We three men roosted on that rail, leaning against the 
boat canopy, for four hours, when we were taken off by a 
Mexican and a boy who came from far down the lake in a 
canoe. They had seen our signals of distress (the waving 
of our hats and coats). We had for two or three hours 
observed a Mexican with a boat at the mouth of the river, 
a mile away, and had waved and shouted ourselves hoarse 
at him, but he paid no attention to us. Finley allowed that 
if we ever got ashore he would kill that man. When we 
reached the man it was evident that he had that terrible 
disease of the eyes called trachoma, and could not see an 
object a hundred feet away, and he was also hard of hearing. 
We forgave the man; and Finley later remarked that the 
man and boy in that canoe were the handsomest Mexicans 
he had ever seen. 

One of the hardships of travel in the Mexican jungle 
country when you come in contact with the brush, is the pest 
of wood ticks, called pinalillas, that get on your body and 



THE MARCHING YEARS 217 

stick closer than any brother, although they do not burrow be- 
neath the skin, as is popularly supposed; they insinuate their 
claws into the skin. Nor do they transmit human disease. 
These insects, we are told, have several stages of develop- 
ment, emerging from each successive stage with two additional 
claws. The final stage takes the name garapata, the name 
in its plural of a village where one of our pipe line pump 
stations is located. 

One summer day half a dozen of us were going south in a 
launch on Lake Tamiahua. At nightfall we put into the 
mouth of a small river and tied up for the night. It was only 
a few rods across a tongue of land to the lake. We had a 
small cooking outfit, and I built a fire out of fagots and dead 
wood — some other campers had preceded us and left a few 
live coals among their ashes. Mr. Doheny made the perfec- 
tion of a shortcake, and baked it in a pan leaned up toward 
the fire. Mr. Canfield cooked bacon and made syrup out of 
sugar for us. He was an expert with the bacon; but he had 
a sweet tooth and made twice as much syrup as we could 
eat. It was a banquet we had that night. 

Two old Mexicans with a large canoe full of fine water- 
melons tied up near us, ate their simple food and lay down to 
sleep near their boat. We tried to buy a melon of them, but 
they refused to sell. They told us the melons were to be 
delivered the next morning to a steamboat due down the lake. 
We divined that their melons had been counted out to them, 
and that if they sold one their count would be wrong and they 
would be in disgrace. The faithfulness of the poor, humble 
and ignorant Mexican when he is charged with a trust of 
consequence is interesting. He will nearly always execute the 
trust faithfully, even if he is guilty, before and after it, of 
some minor peccadillos like stealing your cigars or your 
bottle of whiskey, if you chance to have such things about you. 

We bathed in the lake that night, then slept soundly under 
the stars on packing cots — a sort that folds into a compact 



218 THE MARCHING YEARS 

mass hardly larger than a golf-stick bag. We were fed, 
packed and off soon after sunrise the next morning. 

On one of our lake voyages in a canoe, failing to find at 
nightfall the steamboat that was by prearrangement to take 
us on, we tied up for the night on the bank of an island — 
Toro or Idolo Island. It was a wooded spot, and there 
were swarms of insects to annoy us. Next morning there 
was no steamboat and no food for us, except a few left-over 
pecans. They were being devoured by ants, which I brushed 
away, and amused my friends by forcing them to eat them 
— the pecans, not the ants. We started toward the mainland, 
and in an hour sighted the flat bottomed steamer, which soon 
picked us up. 

It was on another voyage — to the village of Tamiahua and 
south through a tortuous narrow channel, the Canal Angosta — 
to the Tuxpan River, that we were out of drink, not food, 
and sought the left-over half of a quart bottle of unfermented 
grape juice — to be told by a colored servant that he had 
discovered it to have begun to ferment, and had thrown 
it out, supposing it was spoiled. How little he knew what 
a thirsty traveler likes! 

This narrow canal and the wider one at the north of the 
lake, connecting it with the Panuco River, gave us on a few 
occasions some rare fishing experiences. If our boat was 
well lighted at night the fish in their haste to get away from 
us would sometimes jump into the boat — or did they jump 
in out of curiosity? Anyway, they got in and made fine 
food for us. One of our traveling companions on a trip in 
a larger boat, a man who had scouted this story about the 
fish, was fast asleep in his bunk when one of the fish, more 
than a foot long, landed on the deck. A roguish member of 
the company took the fish and, quietly lifting the gentleman's 
bed covers, laid its wet and wriggling form beside him. All 
the company who were awake were present to see the man's 
waking welcome of his new bedfellow. They saw it! He 
and they ate the fish afterward. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 219 

From Tamiahua south through the Canal Angosta most 
of the journey was through a tortuous narrow channel in a 
dense forest. We traveled this by canoes, poled by two men, 
one at each end of the boat. Sometimes we traveled by 
night, sleeping on the bottom of the boat while the polers, 
half the time till daylight, sang gentle, soft yodels to each 
other. The singing was a lullaby to us. 

At Tamiahua once we met a young Scandinavian who was 
canvassing the village and country round about, selling gaudy 
chromo pictures at from five to fifteen dollars each, including 
a frame. He first took orders for the pictures from samples 
which he showed; and later brought the framed product and 
received his first monthly payments— they were nearly all 
sold on the installment plan. And he told me that he had 
been in the business among these people for a long time, 
and that no one there had ever defaulted in his (usually her) 
contract for a picture. 

The explanation he gave of this phenomenal record was 
that the pictures established a social cleavage among the 
houses of these people. They were fast segregating the 
homes into two classes, those which could afford to have a 
picture and those too poor to have one. This was the spur 
that stabilized the business. 

My personal experience on Lake Tamiahua gave me a hint 
as to the pathology of seasickness. I had always been a 
temporary victim to the malady whenever sailing on a large 
ship with a sea at all rough. But on this lake in a twenty- 
foot launch, pitching and plunging in a rough sea for hours at 
a time, there was never a qualm. And numerous of my 
associates who were the same sort of victims, or even more 
sensitive than I, had the same immunity in this sailing in the 
gasoline launches. One friend in particular was so sick on 
an ocean trip from Tampico to Vera Cruz that he was unable 
to get his land legs for a day or two after going ashore. I 
made several journeys on the lake in a launch in a rough sea 
with this man, and he never had the slightest discomfort. 



220 THE MARCHING YEARS 

This experience suggests an explanation of mat de mer, 
in the relation of nausea to vertigo or dizziness. In nausea 
there is nearly always vertigo — all visible objects seem to be 
moving about rather slowly. The two are so closely associa- 
ted that either suggests the other, and may produce it. Nau- 
sea makes all objects seem to move about. When, without 
nausea, all the environment seems to be moving, as on a ship 
rolling so slowly as to fool the nervous system into the im- 
pression that the man is not moving up and down, then the 
nausea soon appears and persists for a while — not for long, 
for soon, in a day or two usually, the brain learns the counter- 
feit unconsciously and refuses to be fooled any longer. The 
pitching and rolling of the little boat is so quick and jerky that 
the physical sensation gives the impression that the body 
itself and not the environment is moving; so no association 
with nausea is produced. It is more like the effect of horse- 
back riding, which almost never produces anything even 
akin to seasickness. (See Appendix V for some details of 
the oil corporations.) 



CHAPTER XX. 

LOS ANGELES. 

N the autumn of 1910, after a continuous residence of 
sixteen years in Pasadena, we moved into Los Angeles to 
live, leaving our home in the finest residence city of the 
world, and friends and neighbors unsurpassed anywhere. 
My office had been in Los Angeles continuously from early 
in 1891, and I had made the journey to it daily except Sun- 
days. At first it was in the Potomac Block at 217 South 
Broadway. In 1907 it was moved to the Auditorium Build- 
ing, on the corner of Fifth and Olive Streets — and it was 
substantially abandoned in 1917. 

The move of the home to the metropolis was made in the 
interest, for me, of economy of time and energy, and for 
business convenience. It saved me the time, never very 
great, devoted to civic affairs in Pasadena; and it enabled 
me to reduce my professional work, and gave me more 
time for secular interests that were daily becoming more 
exacting. I then even found time to make frequent social 
calls with my wife, a thing previously almost impossible. 

Our new home was at No. 10 Chester Place — a beautiful 
house belonging to the Dohenys, and next door to their own 
residence. We lived there six years. Chester Place had 
been for many years one of the finest private-park residence 
parts of the city, and during our stay there it grew more 
beautiful each year. As we prepared to move, the lure of 
the neighborhood was too strong to permit us to leave it, 
and we bought a place at 718 West Adams Street, facing 
Chester Place, with an old colonial house, white pillars and 
all, standing far back from the street. This we in a large 
measure rebuilt, and with as many closets and bathrooms 
as Mrs. Bridge wished for. When finished, it not only had 
these conveniences, with many others that housekeepers 

[221] 



222 THE MARCHING YEARS 

find desirable, but it had an adequate and convenient 
library room — a thing not possessed by any other of the 
eight houses we had previously lived in. We moved in, 
early in January of the year 1917, and another beautiful 
garden was soon growing up about us. We bought a lot on 
Twenty-seventh Street, back of our home, on which were soon 
built a garage, a greenhouse and a duplex house for a gardener 
and a chauffeur. 

We had, a few years before, built a little brown house by 
the mountain near Beverly Hills, on the Doheny ranch, for 
a country place, and had developed rather elaborate and 
ornate grounds about it. We were never able to occupy it 
much — a few week-ends that were greatly enjoyed, and finally 
three months continuously while the town house was being 
rebuilt. Soon after our moving into the latter the country 
place was given up — transferred to our friends the Dohenys, 
under an option existing from the first. The developing 
of that place, the house, the garden, the grounds; seeing the 
planted things grow in size and beauty; the enjoyment of the 
little time spent there, and our entertainment of friends who 
enjoyed it all with us; the vision of the valley below, the city 
of Los Angeles in the distance to the left (at night with its 
thousands of lights) and the ocean to the right; the trails 
and beauties of the Doheny ranch — all these are a wonderful 
green spot in the memory of my life that cannot be erased, 
but happily shall remain as a permanent intellectual asset of 
pleasure. 

Years before we moved our residence to Los Angeles, Dr. 
W. Jarvis Barlow had organized the "Barlow Sanatorium"* 
for cases of tuberculosis, and had asked several of his friends, 
myself among the number, to join him on its Board of Di- 
rectors. I was in this way connected with the work until the 
end of 1916, when for legal reasons — the necessity of confirm- 
ing our transfer of citizenship to Chicago — I resigned as a 
director. 



♦Founded in 1902. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 223 

The ambition from the first was to build up, in the city if 
possible, an institution for the early cases of tuberculosis, 
that offer most hope of recovery. Some acres of land were 
secured, adjoining and nearly surrounded by Elysian Park; 
and there the institution has developed. It has an infirmary, 
an executive building, a recreation hall, a doctors' building, 
and many small cottages for the housing of patients. These 
buildings have all been the free gift offerings of friends of 
this work. The Sanatorium continuously has had from 50 to 
150 patients, mostly non-paying. 

It has done a great deal of good. As its list of friends is 
increasing and their gifts are greater from year to year, it 
is destined to have still greater usefulness in the future. 
Already quite an endowment has accumulated, the gifts or 
bequests of many good friends for this specific purpose. 
This is a fund inviolate — only the income from it can be used. 

The Southwest Museum had been incorporated under the 
laws of California, and had a modest collection housed in 
rooms in the top of the Hamburger Building, when Gen. 
Adna R. Chaffee, its first president, announced his determina- 
tion to retire from the office. The corporation had a tract 
of land of fifteen acres, more or less (on a hill fronting on 
Marmion Way, opposite Sycamore Grove) that had been 
bought some years before by gifts of money from numerous 
citizens, for the permanent home of the Museum. 

I was appointed to succeed Chaffee in 1912. The plans 
for the building were then well under way. If all that the 
plans included was to be built, the cost was bound to be over 
a hundred thousand dollars, and the inside fixtures would 
cost several thousand more, and the cash in sight would fall 
far short of the amount. It was a question whether to build 
the structure in parts, at first omitting the two noble towers, 
keeping within our means and having an ugly looking building 
finally for the public to disparage and pity; or to take the 
risk of building the whole of the magnificent structure as 
the plans called for, and trust to fate, luck and our own 



224 THE MARCHING YEARS 

efforts to find the money to pay the debt. This latter, not 
without some trepidation, we concluded to do, and take the 
consequences. We completed the building,* moved the 
collection into it in 1914 — a large part of it in boxes waiting 
for display cases— and built the cases as fast as possible to 
accommodate the choicest part of the specimens, and to 
provide for the gifts that came thick and fast. In two 
years the institution was a noble thing inside as well as 
outside, and everywhere showed the facile handiwork of its 
cultivated director, Hector Alliot, Ph.D. 

But the "consequences" we had taken stared us in the 
face fast enough. We had a debt that soon frightened us. 
To make matters worse, some of the most active friends of 
the Museum were called out of the country; hard times came 
on; then the Great War and the demands upon our people 
for vast sums to ameliorate the agony of non-combatants. 
So our debt was forgotten by all but the creditors and such 
of us as were officially obliged to remember it. It was 
finally paid — and no money was ever spent more economically, 
or with a more sure and adequate return for all of it, than 
that spent on the building and its fittings. The Museum 
had more for its money than anybody expected, or had reason 
to expect. 

The Museum is devoted to art, archaeology and ethnology 
especially, while it does not neglect other sciences and lines 
of study. Its ambition is to co-ordinate its work with that 
of the schools and colleges of the city and surrounding 
country, and be a true educational center; and it is realizing 
all this. A museum of this character is one of the greatest 
monuments of any community, always provided it is properly 
supported and has efficient and scholarly management. But 
no great proportion of citizens ever take an active interest 
in such institutions; they are supported by the few, with or 
without the aid of public appropriations. Probably the 



*The memorial stone was placed in the front of the building with appropriate 
ceremonies, December 6, 1913. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 225 

contributions to the Southwest Museum have been fewer 
for the reason that the county of Los Angeles has created a 
museum, situated in Exposition Park, and some people not 
unnaturally question why they should be asked to give to an 
unendowed museum, when they pay taxes for the county to 
support one. The County Museum has made good if rather 
extravagant use of its large appropriations, and it has a unique 
fortune in the enormous 'number of bones of extinct animals 
taken from the Hancock Brea Pits, of which it has the custody. 

But the stamp of superior quality of any large community 
is in the institutions of learning, history, art and religion, that 
are the voluntary gifts of the people. The city of Los 
Angeles and its vicinity have some half dozen such noble 
monuments, and not the least of these is the Southwest 
Museum. The friends of this modest institution are increas- 
ing in number and, if it continues to pursue the policy 
of the past, which is substantially certain, it will probably 
some day have an endowment that, with the normal income 
from its membership, will enable it to go on in its good work, 
build other halls to accommodate its fast growing collection, 
and be of increasing benefit to the educational influences 
of southern California. 

The building on the hill has become a thing for wonder and 
exclamation on the part of the thousands who cannot fail to 
see it. To the people of taste in such things it stands as a 
signal triumph of architecture,* and its location makes it a 
conspicuous object of satisfaction and pride in all the country 
roundabout. The interior architecture and the arrangement 
and quality of the collection are as wonderful as the exterior. 
The cases are of improved designs for safety and usefulness. 

While the Museum was being built and for some time 
afterward the air was full of quandaries and guesses as to the 
purpose of it. Somebody guessed it was for a convent; 
another guessed that it would be a cathedral, and some 
wondered if it might not be a hospital or a fort. These 

*The architects were Messrs. Hunt and Burns, of Los Angeles. 



226 THE MARCHING YEARS 

guesses and interrogative gropings were soon translated into 
statements as of facts, and created much amusement. 

In 1916, on the advice of my attorneys, I resigned from 
the Boards of five institutions in California — the Throop 
College of Technology, the Southwest Museum, the Los 
Angeles Symphony, the Barlow Sanatorium and the La Vina 
Sanatorium* in Pasadena. 

The reason for this was no loss of interest in these most 
worthy institutions, but merely to add authority by this 
act to the change of legal residence to Chicago, which Mrs. 
Bridge and I had made in 1915. 

Since my resignation from these institutions they have all 
grown in importance and strength, so my elimination might 
be said to have been useful rather than otherwise. 

Our legal residence was changed for the reason that under 
the laws of California it was impossible for one to make a 
legal will giving more than one-third of his gross estate to 
institutions. This was a condition we were no longer willing 
to be bound by, and we were unwilling to try to evade the 
law by such subterfuges as were often resorted to. We took 
up our legal residence at the Blackstone Hotel and began 
to vote from there in 1916. 



*La Vina is a sanatorium for tuberculosis, situated at the foothills northwest of 
Pasadena. It was started in 1908 by the late Dr. H. B. Stehman, who gave his time 
and unselfish devotion to it until his death, early in 1918. It is situated on a farm of 
two hundred acres and has some twenty buildings — all the gifts of friends of the move- 
ment and of its founder. 

Dr. Stehman had been superintendent of the Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago for 
many years, during most of which I was one of the attending physicians. He broke 
down in health and came to Pasadena in 1899, where he soon after engaged in practice 
and in all manner of good works. He was a man of great personal charm and capacity, 
capable and high minded; a religious man who lived his faith without ostentation, 
In spite of constant ill health he gave ten years of ardent work to La Vina, which stands 
today a monument to his devotion and wise administration. (See also page 162 ante.) 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CLUBS AND SOCIETIES. 

OUR club life in American cities h^s been overdone in 
recent years. There are too many sorts of clubs, and 
men are tempted to join too many of them. Too many 
clubs are started by groups of people bent on making some 
interest or some town famous and up-to-date. Golf has led 
to a swarm of country clubs. University clubs have become 
fashionable; in every town of even moderate size the college 
men have either started a club or wished they might do so, or 
been a little apologetic if they have not made the attempt. 
Athletics is another influence that has bred clubs ; and political 
parties have theirs also. 

The clubs have all done some good, and perhaps no one of 
them is wholly free from abuses in some direction — extrava- 
gance, if nothing worse. I lived in Chicago for many years 
near clubs, none of which I even sought to join. But soon 
after reaching California the California Club of Los Angeles 
admitted me. This is a social club of a high class. Later the 
Union League Club of Chicago elected me. This is a social 
club with civic activities of the best kind. The Union 
League was organized in Civil War time, and was composed of 
Union men only, which made it in all its earlier years mostly 
a republican club. It has an inscription on its great mantel 
that was very meaningful at the beginning; but to a newer 
generation of members it means little, because the issues of 
that day have been settled for now half a century. It reads, 
"Welcome to Loyal Hearts. We Join Ourselves to No Party 
That does Not Carry the Flag and Keep Step to the Music 
of the Union." After we resumed our legal residence in 
Chicago in 1915 my relation in this club was changed from 
non-resident to resident membership. 

[227] 



228 THE MARCHING YEARS 

The Union League has no political party color today; 
but it studies political conditions and stands for a high order 
of civic virtue and efficiency. It has done much to lessen 
political and civic abuses.* 

The Hamilton Club of Chicago has been a republican 
club of high character from the first. I was for several years 
a non-resident member of it. 

On the strength of my graduation from two professional 
schools that afterward became connected with the universi- 
ties, or because of my connection with the faculty of one of 
them, two university clubs have admitted me, one in Chicago 
and one in Los Angeles. I have enjoyed both of these, but 
never was wholly satisfied with their basis of membership. 
A club whose membership is based largely on learning or 
achievement, or authorship, or on capacity or judgment in 
art of some sort has a natural commendableness ; but to make 
membership depend on the place or circumstances of the 
acquisition of knowledge seems artificial, if not aristocratic, 
and would have a phase of the absurd, except for its fostering 
the spirit of scholarship and the encouragement of education 
and educational movements and institutions. This good 
influence is not able to divest the club entirely of a certain 
mark of the peculiar branding iron. 

This reasoning also applies against such societies as the 
Sons of the Revolution — there are two sets of "Sons, " of both 
of which I am a member. There the membership depends on 
whether some ancestor did certain things — an aristocracy of 

*In the Union League Club, Chicago, ' ' the condition of membership shall be absolute 
and unqualified loyalty to the Government of the United States. 

"The primary objects of this Association shall be: 

"1st. To encourage and promote by moral, social and political influence uncon- 
ditioned loyalty to the Federal Government, and to defend and protect the integrity 
and perpetuity of this nation. 

"2nd. To inculcate a higher appreciation of the value and sacred obligations of 
American citizenship; to maintain the civil and political equality of all citizens in every 
section of our common country, and to aid in the enforcement of all laws enacted to 
preserve the purity of the ballot box. 

"3rd. To resist and oppose corruption and promote economy in office, and to 
secure honesty and efficiency in the administration of national, state and municipal 
affairs. " 



THE MARCHING YEARS 229 

commendable heritage. But the saving virtue is that it is 
a leaven for the development of patriotism — a thing that the 
country needs more than it needs more colleges. 

Los Angeles had from 1900 a phenomenal growth in 
population. It had several gentlemen's clubs — enough and 
more than a city of its pretensions needed — but some ambi- 
tious spirits thought they must have an Athletic Club. 
So they financed and built a very sumptuous club home at a 
time when cautious minds were thinking of a slowing down 
on new developments. Many citizens joined the organiza- 
tion to show their appreciation of the enterprise, when they 
were members of too many clubs already. I was among these, 
and kept up my membership for several years. 

The Sierra Madre Club of Los Angeles was organized as a 
miners' club, to bring together as many men as possible 
engaged in the mining business — the oil business being 
reckoned in this category. I was a member for several years. 
But the membership could not be restricted to the mining 
and oil business, nor was that desirable. This club, while 
altogether worthy in social ways, was never strong financially, 
and it went out of existence during the Great War. 

There are two highly creditable clubs in Los Angeles that 
I succeeded in keeping out of, the Jonathan Club and the 
Union League; but I have been a member of three golf clubs, 
the Pasadena (now out of existence), the Annandale and the 
Mid wick— the last two made up mainly of citizens of Los 
Angeles and Pasadena. These were all first-class organiza- 
tions, and for this reason I had some regrets at resigning 
from them. 

The oldest club in Pasadena that has a club house is the 
Valley Hunt. It is a social organization for ladies and 
gentlemen, and has had a useful career of many years. Mrs. 
Bridge and I were members for several years while we lived 
in Pasadena. The club took its name from an ambition on 
the part of a few of the early settlers to ride to hounds through 
San Gabriel Valley in the style of the English. Of course 



230 THE MARCHING YEARS 

the hunting could not be kept up, with the thick settling up 
of the San Gabriel Valley, but the name has remained. One 
of the early movers in this enterprise was, I think, the late 
Charles Frederick Holder, a great lover of sports, of nature 
and wild life, and author of several worthy books. 

One of my late experiences has been as member of the 
Bankers' Club of America, of New York City — which is not 
a club of bankers specially, but of men of many classes. 
Being situated in one of the largest buildings of the metro- 
polis, it brings together at the lunch hour a small army of 
superior business men. 

The latest experience is membership in the Cosmos Club, 
of Washington, D. C. The effort seems to have been from 
the first to restrict admissions largely to authors, writers, 
college men, educators, men of large accomplishment in the 
affairs of life and Bohemians in general. It is quartered 
in the house last occupied by President Madison, and has a 
superb full-length portrait of Dolly Madison. 

All the clubs referred to above have their own houses or 
quarters, and all entertain and feed their members. There 
is one small Los Angeles Club that has been in existence since 
1895, that has never had quarters of its own, but has enter- 
tained its members once each month, except in summer, with 
a simple dinner early in the evening, followed by some intel- 
lectual program provided for beforehand. The lights are 
put out at ten o'clock. Its membership, of congenial spirits 
of many professions and occupations, numbers some seventy 
men, and its name is the Sunset Club. Its members are 
known colloquially as "Sunsetters." It was founded by the 
late Charles Dwight Willard. 

Usually the Sunsetters have a winter holiday celebration 
of some sort, sometimes called their High Jinks, and a cele- 
bration out of doors at the end of the club season in June. 
These occasions have always been enjoyable, as well as sur- 
prising. I was one of the charter members, and was president 
of the club in 1916. The same two men served as secretary 



THE MARCHING YEARS 231 

and treasurer from the beginning, for many years, the only 
officer that has been changed annually being the president. 
The club has been characterized throughout its history by 
good-fellowship and pleasant and profitable association among 
the members. It is an unwritten law that no visitors are 
ever brought to the club meetings; the intellectual exercises 
are always the work of the members. 

When I was still an active member of the Chicago Academy 
of Sciences, the Wisconsin Academy of Science, Arts and 
Letters honored me with a corresponding membership. My 
inability ever to be present at any meeting of that dignified 
and useful society has been matter for regret. 

As early as possible after my graduation I joined the 
American Medical Association, and have kept up the member- 
ship. I also helped many years afterward in the reorganization 
of the Association, so as to keep its legislative and scientific 
work separate, to the benefit of both. Another measure of 
great value was introduced, namely, a system whereby mem- 
bership in the national body is reached through membership 
in the county and state medical societies. This insures an 
active interest in the professional weal of the member's own 
neighborhood and state, as well as in that of the nation. 

In the later decades of the last century the American 
profession had the beginning of a great awakening. Many of 
the medical schools added to their equipment and efficiency; 
some united with universities or other schools ; some ceased to 
exist. There was a new growth of laboratories ; the pursuit of 
special studies increased, and in the larger towns there was 
a division of the profession, to a considerable degree, into 
specialties. The devotees of each specialty formed societies 
and issued regular publications devoted to their work — a 
specialty literature. Some of the societies were organized as 
early as the sixties. Research increased in each society as 
time went on. 

In the eighties some fourteen of these special societies 
began to meet together every third year in the spring time, 



232 THE MARCHING YEARS 

in Washington, District of Columbia, for two days, under 
the name of the "Congress of American Physicians and 
Surgeons." There were some general exercises of the 
Congress at certain hours, and the constituent societies held 
their regular meetings at other hours of each day. The 
proceedings of each Congress were printed in book form, and 
of course each of the constituent societies published annually 
its own proceedings. This triennial meeting together of the 
several societies was stimulating and profitable to all of them. 
It gave the members the opportunity to visit other organiza- 
tions besides their own, which added to their acquaintance- 
ship, as well as to their mental breadth. 

I was early elected to the Association of American Physi- 
cians, and later to the American Climatological and Clinical 
Association. Of the latter I was president in 1903, one of 
the years of my participation in the Congress of Physicians 
and Surgeons. 

The American Academy of Medicine was founded in 
the middle seventies. It was to be an encourager not merely 
of learning, but of college education and degrees, antedating 
medical graduation. Only men with academic degrees were 
eligible for membership. It was a laudable ambition, but 
the Academy never succeeded greatly in either membership 
or scientific output, although it was always composed of a 
group of most excellent gentlemen of high personal and 
professional character. It lacked the drawing social motive 
of the University Club. Its numbers were small, and its 
influence not what it was hoped it would be. Finally the 
rule as to eligibility was changed and made more liberal; 
then I was invited to become a member, and did so. 

In the early eighties tuberculosis was discovered to be 
due to the ravages of a peculiar bacillus operating in the 
animal body. From that time professional and lay opinion 
on the subject began to be more scientific and practical. 
Gradually a new literature of it grew up, and more rational 



THE MARCHING YEARS 233 

efforts were made to prevent the spread of the disease, as 
well as to cure it. 

In 1905 a national association for the study and prevention 
of tuberculosis was formed. It held a convention annually, 
published its proceedings and circulated various publications 
in vast numbers, and increased greatly the attention of the 
public to the subject. Numerous state and local societies 
were formed, and sanatoriums and hospitals in many states. 
By 1918 there were in this country some 600 such institutions 
with provision for 40,000 patients, besides some 500 dispen- 
saries and tuberculosis clinics, and there were employed 
about 3,000 special woman nurses for this disease. 

During the early years of the movement I gave much time 
and attention to its furtherance, not only joining the national 
and local associations, but helping in any way possible to call 
attention to the better things to do to save the victims and 
spare the public. The work was interesting and profitable, 
and I regretted the fate that finally curtailed my efforts in 
this direction. The movement has unquestionably accom- 
plished a great deal of good. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

WARTIME ACTIVITIES. 

WENT to Washington in July, 1917, three months after 
our own declaration of war, and was there and in New 
York and Chicago most of the time till a year after the 
armistice was signed in early November, 1918. Two months 
the first winter and one the second was all the time available 
to me in Los Angeles. My service was first on various com- 
mittees of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States 
(deliberations made necessary by the war), and finally as 
chairman of the National Alien Enemy Relief Committee, 
whose work continued till six months after the armistice. This 
committee was a nation-wide body of men and women — 
some nineteen in number — whose duties were to assist the 
Departments of State and Justice, and the legations of 
Sweden and Switzerland, by acting as a sort of clearing house 
for the class of persons named in the title of the committee. 
The name of the committee was devised by the chairman by 
and with the advice of the departments and legations. Its 
work throughout the country was primarily to learn the needs 
and identity of dependents of the men who had been interned 
by our Government as dangerous enemy aliens, and who were 
thereby unable to provide for the support of their families. 
Our duty was to determine as to the genuineness of the claims 
of dependents and the extent of the urgent needs, and report 
our findings to the proper legation, which promptly supplied 
the required funds — the Swedish legation if the claim was 
Austro-Hungarian, and the Swiss if it was German. These 
legations were in charge of the affairs of those nations during 
the war; and they were anxious, as our Government was, that 
relief should be limited to actual and dire needs, and only to 
genuine dependents of the internees. 

[234] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 235 

There were many innocent aliens of German and Austro- 
Hungarian nationality or descent — some of them to their 
surprise had just discovered that they were not American 
citizens — who were wholly loyal to this nation, but who 
suffered from local prejudice and often unfair treatment by 
their neighbors. These we were asked to assist by counsel, 
admonition and persuasion, to them and to their neighbors. 
We had no means of direct material assistance, but we were 
able to find ways of encouragement and amelioration for 
many of these unfortunates. 

Our committee work was helped greatly by — indeed it 
was largely performed with the ready and loyal assistance of — 
the various charity organizations which exist in nearly every 
city in the country. Every one of these to which we ap- 
pealed for investigation of cases, was prompt and efficient in 
supplying the information required, and their assistance was 
rendered — like our own — with no other compensation than 
a sense of useful service in the great consummation to which 
the nation was committed. Moreover, these organizations 
showed an encouraging degree of standardization in the 
function of relief to which they were all devoted — a system 
calculated to render relief as and when really needed, and 
without either producing or fostering mendicancy. These 
charity organizations uniformly extended their aid and mercy 
to all people in dire need, and no questions were asked as to 
nationality, except to exclude the dependents of internees, 
who were promptly referred to us. 

When we began to function, our committee was told by 
the State Department that the Government had not a dollar 
that could legally be devoted to us; that the committee must 
finance itself; and this we did to the end, and gladly. And 
at the end we had the commendations of the Departments of 
State and Justice and of the two legations for the efficient 
and timely performance of our duties. 

During these war months, and for months afterward, it 
was my fortune to come in contact with many officials, 



236 THE MARCHING YEARS 

departments, commissions and committees of the Govern- 
ment. The first year there was, owing to intense pressure, 
a great deal of confusion, many overlappings and short- 
comings. A great army was being gathered and drilled in 
the field and at sea, and another army of Government servants 
and officials in Washington and elsewhere were trying the 
best that was in them, at almost wholly unfamiliar and very 
exacting tasks, to bring and keep order out of confusion. But 
much disorder and lost motion were at first unavoidable; 
these grew less as the months passed, and the following year 
showed a marked improvement everywhere. The workers 
knew their jobs were brief; that they would get out of them 
and go home as soon as the war was over, and they were 
fearful of making mistakes and being criticised or punished 
therefor. This led to a great timidity in assuming responsi- 
bility, so there was, in the slang of the hour, much "passing 
of the buck" from one official to another, to find one able 
and willing to act officially and to take responsibility. 

To add to the embarrassment there was a dearth of office 
room. Many departments and sections had to be housed in 
private buildings of all sorts — commandeered by the Govern- 
ment — scattered about in different parts of the city, every 
office being moved as often as it could get into better quarters. 
The Government was all the while pushing the construction 
of enormous temporary buildings for offices for its workers, 
as well as for the dwellings of many of them — so that by the 
end of the fighting the pressure had become considerably 
reduced. The Treasury Department had grown to such 
enormous proportions that it was housed in more than two 
dozen different buildings, and two great buildings, noble in 
proportions and solid in structure, were in the process of 
construction for this department. 

With all the handicaps it is no wonder that the confusion 
was great and unavoidable — the wonder is that it was not 
greater. The volunteers did the best they could; they were 
mostly commendably industrious and I believe conscientious 



THE MARCHING YEARS 237 

in the public service. The best blood and brain of the country 
were working there for a dollar a year or nothing; and in a 
few months the improvement in the service was remarkable. 
The history of the public service during the nineteen 
months of active war was probably as creditable as is possible 
in this generation, with such a colossal task to be done in 
such a rush. Of course many mistakes were made; there was 
a vast wastage of money — and doubtless in spots dishonesty 
and peculations, for which certain persons have settled or 
will later settle with the courts. But on the whole the 
Government, as well as the army and navy, did tasks of 
which the ages will be proud. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE EMOTIONAL SIDE. 

AIR castles are the creation of most boys and many men, 
and probably of all girls and women. They are the 
fruitage of hope, aspiration, wish; they are the flower 
of necessity, the call of life. Hunger, thirst, fatigue, cold, 
heat; friendships, companionships, comradery; the love and 
desire of friendships; ambitions in life and life work; the 
mating impulse — all these are emotions that grow air castles. 
The push of competition, the yearning for excellence, for the 
comforts and luxuries of life, the love of family and friends 
and money (in a way the call on the world), all are blue- 
printed in imagination; they are emotional and begin as the 
children of fancy. So are sports, games and the pull of 
fashion. 

Men and women talk, write and preach about the intel- 
lectual life. There is hardly such a thing apart from emotion 
— which really is thought and likes and dislikes, all brazed 
together. It is the emotional life that is of universal potency; 
it is the thing that directs, absorbs, restrains, pushes and 
hauls us hither and yon; the union of thought with wish or 
desire for or against things, people, work and play. It is the 
egoistic, the selfism. Life is made up of likes and dislikes, 
loves and hates, attractions and repulsions; of patriotism, 
philanthropy, altruism, benevolence; love of attention and 
fame; ambition, avarice, pride, envy, jealousy, avidity for 
favors; self-respect, self-reproach, self-conviction, remorse 
and even laziness. What a catalogue of variations — and 
quite incomplete! 

The pictures of fancy, and the storms and calms of 
emotion, change and fly like the flying fictions of a dream. 
Verily, emotion moves the world and makes possible the 
intellectual life, the stability of society and the world's 

[238] 



THE MARCHING YEARS 239 

progress — if there is such a thing. It is the sanity and un- 
sanity of the human pilgrimage. And in this phase of our 
being perhaps no two of us are exactly alike. We marvel 
that an exact duplicate of finger prints can be found only 
among some millions of individuals. But it is infinitely 
unlikely that we could find a true duplication of emotional 
experience. 

Nobody ever built more air castles in his childhood and 
youth than I did; or ever fancied himself in more kinds of 
circumstances, or as following more different trails. The 
fancies were rarely of glory or wealth, or of an impossible 
situation, but rather of doing things. In childhood there 
were numerous mental excursions into a realm of romance 
and the unreal, usually as an egotist who in his air castles 
was an individual of importance. Later the egotist dis- 
covered what a shallow basis there was for his airs, and 
settled down to a more deliberate tramp along the road with 
his feet on the earth. But he was always emotionally sus- 
ceptible, whatever his outward appearance may have 
indicated. 

Some of my small child reasonings and fancies were 
grotesque, if not a little stupid. For example, I had many 
times seen my father drive a horse with reins, before the 
discovery that he guided the animal with them. That must 
have been the experience of thousands of boys; but my 
reasoning about it was peculiar, for I wondered how the horse 
knew which way to go, and concluded that he knew by 
hearing ray father tell me where he was going, when I had 
asked him and begged to go along. I remember too my 
surprise and chagrin on discovering my stupidity, and that 
I was careful not to tell it to my brother or parents, who 
would properly have made fun of me. 

In my adolescence the activities of the hour or the day 
led to fancies that were natural enough. As my work was 
sometimes hard, the fancy was of an easier job, like riding 
instead of walking behind a plow, or driving a stage coach 



240 THE MARCHING YEARS 

or an express wagon. If the weather was hot, the fatigue 
considerable, and the thirst great, fancy pictured a seat in 
the shade beside a spring of cool water or a gurgling brook. 
If the weather was frigid, fancy provided warm clothes, houses 
and beds. The fancies came in a flash, and more often when 
I was at work. When, as often happened, they were about 
the work, they would run on ahead of it, even to its termina- 
tion and beyond, so that the task of the moment seemed far 
away and foreign. Thus the fancies seemed to divert the 
attention from the immediate present. This constituted the 
absent-mindedness that was often enough observed in me by 
others. The same habit showed, years later, in lecturing to 
classes of students. A sentence would be started, then the 
mind would rush on along the subject ahead of the words; 
and the best way to end the sentence would be lost in the 
haze of distracted attention. Then would come a quick 
shadow of fear that the sentence might end in bad English 
or inanity, and a vocal dash would be thrown in and the 
sentence be recast. These occurrences were humiliating, and 
could not be wholly prevented, although lessened by delib- 
erateness in thought and speech. 

As a boy — and through life — to see another do an expert 
thing that I could not do, always had a peculiar fascination 
for me. Once when a mere lad, on seeing a shoemaker's deft 
handling of tools and leather, I was seized with an ambition 
to be a shoemaker. On coming to Illinois and living beside a 
railroad, and daily seeing an engineer sitting in his cab and, 
with a few handles, managing the grand locomotive, while I 
was trudging on foot behind a plow or harrow, I longed to be 
an engineman. I knew the names of many of the passenger 
engines that passed by — in that day they had names as 
well as numbers. The "Greyhawk" and "Blackhawk" were 
my favorites ; these names had a romantic ring. And that 
feeling has never been wholly lost; for now, the sight of a 
fine looking locomotive in rapid action brings back that 
early thrill. 



THE MARCHING YEARS 241 

The rapidity with which thoughts daily rush through the 
brain is startling. But a striking event or a mental or n oral 
shock may blind us to a multitude of details that we really 
see and hear, and a bump on the head may knock out the 
memory of even the accident itself. 

I have no doubt of my own frequent dullness in observa- 
tion of important events and details going on about me — 
without having a bump on the head; but once a series of 
rapidly succeeding thoughts rushed through my mind in a 
few seconds, that were afterward a source of much interest. 
They occurred during a fall in an elevator and at the moment 
of its striking the bottom of the shaft. * The fall was through 
several stories, and the last part of the journey was of course 
more rapid than the first; ten seconds or less was perhaps the 
time of the fall. In that brief moment there were half a 
dozen acts of thought that were as clear and distinct as 
though formed in the calm of tranquil deliberation. 

The elevator was used for freight, and had no cage, but a 
cross-beam top. I was sitting on a stool by a pile of large 
boxes when the fall began, and the first thought was of what 
I had often advised others to do under like circumstances — 
to stand with slightly bent knees to avoid a shock to the 
brain and spinal cord at the moment of striking bottom; 
and I quickly rose to that position. The next thought was 
to grab a knob of one of the closed doors of the elevator 
shaft, and hold on, so as to avoid going to the bottom. But 
the rush past the first two floors was so rapid that my courage 
failed me. Then I thought of jumping out at the main 
floor where I had entered the elevator, supposing this door 
would surely be open, but it was closed, and as we shot past 
it the thought or feeling was distinctly one of gloom, because 
we were rushing into the basement that I had never seen. 
Fortunately there was no door to the shaft in the basement, 
and as we struck I tumbled forward on the floor, helped by 
the knee-flexed position to fall like a man dreaming. The 

*July 9, 1880. 



242 THE MARCHING YEARS 

pile of boxes tumbled on top of my feet and legs, and the 
next thought was one of relief, because I perceived that only 
my legs would be lost! The next instant my legs were felt 
to be safe, and the calamity only a matter of bruises and 
barked shins (the boxes contained only letter envelopes). 
The other two men in the elevator fared worse; one jumped 
out into the alley as we passed its open door, and was nearly 
killed; the other was the elevator boy, who clung to the wire 
rope and had the inside of his hands skinned. 

All these thoughts were clean cut, swift acts of the think- 
ing brain, that were remembered vividly afterward. A blow 
on the head severe enough to produce a concussion of the 
brain would have made any memory of these events and 
thoughts impossible. With the brain in a normal state, and 
no physical jar to it, or lack of good blood, what a flying of 
dispatches there must be constantly going on between the 
centers of the classical five and other senses in this organ — 
the cortical, thinking cells of the brain, between the different 
groups and centers of these cells! All the wonders of the 
telegraph, telephone and wireless wizardry fail even to ap- 
proach it. 

It is not always easy for the mind to take in as final what 
is proven by abundant evidence. We know things must be 
so, but we cannot quite feel that they are, until some shock to 
our senses drives away all shadowy doubt. Probably this 
is the experience of the common mind — anyway, many 
experiences of the sort came to my own youth, and some in 
much later life. 

It needed the long tolling of the court house bell in the 
great Chicago fire, when the bell watchman was being driven 
from his post by the flames, to make me feel what was already 
shown by the facts, that the whole north division of the city 
was doomed. When my brother's body was brought home 
in a casket, and I saw his shrunken, indubitable form — that 
was final. But in the case of that beloved young uncle, 
even after reading letters that told of his death in battle, 



THE MARCHING YEARS 243 

my boy mind clung to the phantom, the feeling, that maybe 
it was not true, and that he might yet again appear to us in 
the flesh. For some weeks afterward whenever a man's 
form would come into distant view, walking from the railroad 
station toward our house, the feeling and hope would rush 
upon me that it might be Uncle Parker alive. This ended 
only when one of his comrades, who had buried him, came 
home and brought some of his personal belongings and told 
us the story. 

The moods of the day often determine success or failure 
in its tasks, as well as its comforts and discomforts. If the 
day starts with an unexpected jolt, like a sharp pain or a 
metaphoric slap in the face, this may send a shadow over the 
mind for hours, and until long after the nature of the blow 
has been forgotten. I have many times had such a mood 
of mind, and later wondered what had started it; and my 
experiences of the opposite sort would be numbered by the 
thousands. 

A great business man of the west was so fastidious about 
his office desk and his papers, that if his office boy had left 
them in disorder he was cross for half the day. And who has 
not known some lady to rise in the morning rather petulant, 
and have her day glorified because it started off with some 
unexpected compliment to her appearance, or maybe a gift 
of flowers? But let any fastidious man or woman try to be 
composed and go on with the day's tasks and amenities after 
a splash of mud has struck a white shirt front or a white 



gown 



For myself there is no question that such depressing hours 
have led to the creation of a counter-mood of stoicism, a 
determination to hold to the task of the time, regardless of 
clouds and storms. And following this stoical mood would 
nearly always come — early or late- — a sense of comfort, rest- 
fulness and quiet. 

A common cause of such a mood of depression was some 
strain or a sense of diffidence (an egoistic emotion, of a kind) 



244 THE MARCHING YEARS 

that was, early in life, a nearly constant experience in certain 
human contacts, and that disappeared very slowly, but 
never entirely. This was marked in my lecturing through 
all the early years, and led to many tricks and devices to 
mask and overcome it. Here the forced stoicism helped 
encouragingly. For many years I preached the lesson of 
imperturbability to students, when the teacher was saying 
two words for himself and one for them. 

When as a child the care-taking function of my mind was 
developing I often borrowed troubles. Sometimes when my 
parents went to town I would imagine them meeting with some 
calamity ; and if I went to town I might imagine coming home 
to find our house on fire. These mental sensations are what 
by some people would be called presentiments or significant 
forebodings — but only if the calamities happened. As in 
my case no such calamities ever did happen and the fore- 
bodings were frequent, the significance of presentiments 
acquired a negative dignity in my philosophy. The forebod- 
ings were probably due to indigestion, fatigue, disappointment 
or the longing of a sensitive child in his expanding years. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

MUSIC. 

MUSIC has always given me pleasure and made me a 
debtor to it. But what to a small boy seemed 
exquisite music, in later life was largely trash. Yet 
in middle life and later, after I had tasted deeply the pleasure 
of the best music, if many weeks passed without hearing some 
of it, the sound of even a melodious hand-organ would give 
some pleasure — it would suggest by contrast the sound of 
better things. 

My earliest memory of music that thrilled me to my finger 
tips was when called to our house from the hay field at ten or 
eleven years of age, to hear a traveling blind violinist play. 
His name was Beers, and he went about the country 
playing for any one who cared to listen, and accepted the free 
hospitality of the people and little gifts of money. The real 
violinist of today would call his playing crude indeed; but 
to my ears then it came out of the heavens! 

I had heard a little singing in church and elsewhere, that 
was enjoyable, and this created an ambition to learn to sing. 
At fourteen or fifteen this seemed near realization when in 
the near-by village I attended a few elementary lessons at a 
singing school. There were twenty or more pupils of all 
ages. It seemed to me that I had a good voice, a musical 
one — and it still seems so. But in singing there is one indis- 
pensable condition; you must make your tone on the key 
intended. And here I failed deplorably, got discouraged 
with the singing school, and never afterward took up the 
study. Farmer boys had few opportunities to enjoy music 
unless they or their families could play or sing — and there 
was none of that sort of music in my family. 

[245] 



246 THE MARCHING YEARS 

The political campaign of 1860 gave me a taste of martial 
music; and that taste has given pleasure in all the years 
since. I do not expect, this side of the grave, to cease to 
enjoy acutely this sort of music when well played. 

In 1867-8 in Chicago the opportunity came to hear the 
best music — an occasional opera; the Thomas Orchestra a 
few times each year; and later some musical festivals and 
oratorios in the old Exposition Building on the lake front. 
My musical appreciation grew, and with it a critical sense, 
which always adds to the joy of music unless it becomes so 
intense as to magnify defects that cark our nerves to 
the point where we fail to hear the perfections. In a few 
years my taste had completely changed; better music was 
appreciated; and, like childish things, certain previously 
admired music was put away and, as far as possible, forgotten. 
The change was notable especially in an increasing apprecia- 
tion of Beethoven and Wagner. 

That old Exposition Building is remembered for many 
days and evenings of amusement. Many kinds of entertain- 
ment were held there. One that interested me greatly, and 
which I helped Mr. Elias Colbert to produce (under the 
auspices of the Chicago Academy of Sciences), was the 
pendulum experiment to illustrate how the equator travels 
faster than the rest of the earth's surface. In this wise 
it was done: In the center of the building was a high dome 
made for architectural effect. From the highest point of it 
we suspended a small, strong, steel wire, long enough (1203^ 
feet) to reach nearly to the floor. To this wire was attached 
a globular leaden bob that weighed some 120 pounds, and had 
a projecting needle at the bottom of it. A chalked circle 
several feet in diameter was made on the floor around the 
bob as a center, and the surface of this was sprinkled with 
sand that was slightly brushed by the needle as it swung. 
The experiment consisted in setting the bob swinging widely 
in the exact meridian (north and south) at a recorded moment. 
It continued to swing for days, and seemed gradually to veer 



THE MARCHING YEARS 247 

to the right— so that by the time it came to rest it appeared 
to be swinging in a southwest-northeast axis. As a matter 
of fact it continued to swing in the very line where it started ; 
the ring on the floor had moved in a circle to the left under it, 
because the south side of the ring was moving toward the 
east faster than the north side. It was a sight for wonder 
to a large number of people who daily thronged the place. 

I wonder if the cause of this gyration can produce the 
twisted growth to the left, (i.e., like the clock hands turned 
backward) of certain trees that thrive north of the equator 
—the eucalyptus globulus especially ; and if perchance similar 
trees south of the equator twist in the opposite direction. 

My conscious debt of gratitude to the Thomas Orchestra 
was so great that when there was a movement to provide a 
permanent hall for its concerts, and its friends everywhere 
were asked to contribute, I sent from California my little 
check to satisfy my sentiment and to help a trifle. 

In the late nineties Mr. Harley Hamilton, an accomplished 
musician of Los Angeles, brought about the organization of a 
Symphony Association ; got together an orchestra of local 
talent, and began to give each winter a series of symphony 
concerts. He gave freely of his time, talents and money, 
and with the funds at his disposal did as well as anybody 
could. 

Comparatively few people contributed toward the Sym- 
phony funds, and no large gifts were made during all the 
years of his struggle. Evidently the mass of cultivated peo- 
ple and music lovers, those who were able to contribute 
liberally, had never discovered that a fine large orchestra, 
drilled sufficiently to compare favorably with the best, is not 
merely a means of musical enjoyment, elevation and culture, 
but a positive asset of value to the community, and an 
investment that always pays indirectly. Such an orchestra 
requires a large annual outlay; and the people of Los Angeles 
have never been aroused to the point of providing con- 
tinuously the funds for such an expense. It is a serious 



248 THE MARCHING YEARS 

question whether they will, before the middle of the century, 
reach that point. A few citizens who were believers in the 
movement, and were able to give, gave liberally; but they, 
with a considerable number who gave small sums, were never 
able to carry a season through without a deficit — which is 
always a difficult thing to manage. 

After some sixteen years of service to the Symphony, Mr. 
Hamilton was obliged, on account of ill health, to resign the 
leadership and go abroad for a long rest. In appreciation 
of his work and faithfulness, the printed matter of the Sym- 
phony organization bears the legend: "Founded by Harley 
Hamilton." 

The new director, Mr. Adolf Tandler, was a musician of 
great capacity and fine discrimination. He insisted at the 
beginning on more rehearsals than his predecessor had ever 
secured. His artistic results from year to year were excellent, 
and showed the good effect of more and thorough drill. The 
public appreciation increased, as did the audiences, and the 
enthusiasm was great — but the seasons always ended with a 
deficit, sometimes a large one. I had for years been a small 
contributor, and on coming to Los Angeles to live, took more 
interest in the Symphony organization, and finally consented 
to serve a few years as its president, and to give it still more 
time and thought. 

My experience with the Los Angeles Symphony (Inc.), 
my admiration and sympathy for it, have led to a study in a 
practical way of the subject of symphony orchestras for 
American cities. Here are a few conclusions that seem 
unavoidable : 

1. The work of the large symphony orchestra at its best 
represents the highest attained point of musical culture and 
refinement. 

2. Any city that hopes to possess and enjoy regularly 
within its own borders the highest musical expression and 



THE MARCHING YEARS 249 

effects must have such an orchestra. Any city can have one 
if it will pay the price. 

3. Smaller cities with less musical ambition and smaller 
means — or small inclination to give — can have fine quartets, 
quintets or larger combination for so-called chamber music, 
and concerts where the very best music can be played, and 
with as much refinement as is possible to a symphony 
orchestra; but of course with less glorious musical effects. 

4. In general, only such ambition as can be paid for 
should be indulged. It is demoralizing to end a season with 
a deficit unless it can be promptly subscribed and paid. 

5. The organization of a band of musicians, small or 
great, should have for its development and a fair return to 
the public in musical cultivation and entertainment, as well 
as community prestige, at least four years of security ahead 
of it. There should be at first an adequate, signed guaranty 
fund for not less than four successive years. 

6. In general, notwithstanding the experience of Chicago, 
no attempt should be made to build a hall or home for a sym- 
phony orchestra unless a few rich men and women have a 
spontaneous ambition to build one and pay for it, which 
nothing else will satisfy. An orchestra can always find some 
place to play; it does not greatly need a home of its own, 
however pleasant one with good acoustics may be; it does 
need the income of an endowment or a guaranty fund, to 
make sure of an adequate wage to its musicians; and it needs 
for its encouragement large audiences, which can usually be 
had if admission fees are low enough. 

7. The most important personage in the artistic body is 
the musical director. And to find foot-loose (and willing 
to come for what salary there is for him) a director with high 
musical capacity and ideals; one capable of pleasing, even 
fascinating the public, and of keeping on good terms with the 
musicians, and getting the best possible musical effects 
through them, is a most unusual fortune. It is quite as 



250 THE MARCHING YEARS 

difficult as to find a good president for a university; more 
difficult than to find a good state or national executive. 

To make a symphony season or a succession of them 
successful, the director, musicians and the attending and sup- 
porting public must work together and be pleased — and many 
of these people have high sensibilities and a low emotional 
flash point. Sentimental troubles come easily, and criticism 
is easier than sin — and when inconsiderate, is a sin. 

8. To make a symphony organization most successful 
there should be a supreme small body of persons capable of 
doing the most vital thing in the business — raising the neces- 
sary money. The box office receipts are never half enough. 
The body may be called a Board of Directors or any other 
acceptable name; and its decisions on all business questions 
should be final and absolute. It would better be composed 
entirely of sympathetic, helpful business men of civic pride 
and of large means of their own, or with a large following of 
stable people. Such a body can always raise money, and 
usually will. 

9. Symphony concerts are never so popular as they 
deserve to be in a community of rather high average culture. 
The first reason is the usually high, or heavy, and often tire- 
some character of the programs. These please the musicians 
and the more highly cultivated of the audience; but this 
means a small minority of those who ought to attend, and of 
those who usually do attend. The majority need to be 
amused more; they will enjoy and appreciate one long classic 
symphony; beyond that they need amusing music, so-called 
popular music of the highest grade for the rest of the program. 
It is always difficult to get a musical director — who usually 
likes to play for musicians and critics — to see this fact for 
what it is worth. 

The employment of one soloist often draws a larger 
audience and always pleases and entertains. Contrary to 
some of my former views, it now seems to me that there 



THE MARCHING YEARS 251 

should always be in the program a soloist who pleases the 
people — a soloist or some very popular music, or, better, both. 

Another reason for some unpopularity is the frequent 
playing of poor music because it is both new and novel; 
playing it because the director is obsessed with a sense of 
duty to try out novelties because they are such. Novelties, 
unless known to please, ought to be tried out by endowed 
orchestras, or those that have money enough — not by those 
seeking and needing popular favor for their existence. 

There are extant some hundreds of known musical com- 
positions that are great music by an established consensus 
of the best judges. We can get on very well with these and 
without new ones that do not approach them in excellence. 
There is little place — only an occasional small place — in the 
work of the average symphony orchestra for music whose 
almost sole recommendation is its technical difficulties and 
musical gymnastics. Rarely does such a piece give special 
pleasure to the average music lover. The orchestra must 
elevate the musical taste of the average music lover while it 
amuses him — and it must amuse him. Let us have new 
music by all means, provided it be musical, and does not fall 
below our better standards of excellence. 

10. The opera is more popular with a class of the public 
than the symphony orchestra. Why? Because it is more of 
a show; the story and the dramatic action stand for much; 
there is more style in the audience— ladies go to see and exhibit 
costumes, and in some details the lack of them. Then there 
is a "zest in the love affairs, murders, suicide or betrayal of 
woman, that occur variously in most operas. Much of the 
music is good, but a great deal in nearly every opera is 
necessarily commonplace — and of course in each case it is 
the work of one composer. 

The experience of the opera should lead the symphony 
management to make their concerts attractive — and it can 
be done without lowering their artistic standard. A good 
lesson may be found in the experience of a superior marching 



252 THE MARCHING YEARS 

band, as on some fete day it passes along a city street crowded 
with all classes of people. It plays a piece of novel and 
difficult music, showing great practice and perfect attack, 
and the music critics are charmed, but the great crowd is 
silent. Next let the band strike up a superior popular air, 
and at the first bar of it the crowd roars with cheers and 
handclapping. Yet the bandmaster probably thinks the 
crowd incapable of musical appreciation, and perhaps thinks 
it vulgar. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

FRIENDSHIPS. 

THROUGH life I have had more friends than were 
ever deserved; and to express my full thankfulness for 
them and what they have been to me would tax even 
extravagant language. 

In looking back over these many people of multifarious 
qualities and shades of good character; considering how they 
have appeared to me, and trying to guess how I may have 
appeared to them, it is perfectly evident that few of us ever 
give any serious thought to friendships — our own and the 
friendships of others — as a factor of our social existence, in 
order to make these relations contribute to a mutual profit 
of a lasting kind. 

Any scanning of such a field, especially if reaching over a 
long stretch of years, gives much material for thought and 
many lessons of profit; and really the study seems to be thrust 
upon us, if we have a disposition to think on such things. 

This life is a sorry mess if we try to travel alone, for we 
never succeed. We touch elbows with others unavoidably. 
Some of them are bound to be our neighbors in the social 
sense, and it is better if many of them can be our friends. 
A successful life connotes — or ought to — a happy life; and 
such a life means friends that we can respect, work and live 
beside and with, and love. 

To most of us it is, to all of us it ought to be, a necessity 
to have friends of the right sort; and it profits us to try to 
deserve them. It ought to be with us an art and a religion 
to give and receive those friendships that are mutually 
profitable and that harm no one. 

Most people prize such ties and have numerous friends. 
But some who covet friends have few, and they wonder 
why, and rarely discover the reason. Their neighbors know, 

[253] 



254 THE MARCHING YEARS 

but cannot tell them; they would not believe if they were 
told. Others seem not to care for friends; they never try 
to cultivate them, and yet have some; still others have a 
peevish aversion to everyone who tries to be friendly with 
them. Their neighbors know them for sour egoists — irri- 
tated by the smiles of those who would like to be neighborly. 

People who are wholesome in their friendships have the 
best of life; their attachments are sane, comforting and 
beneficial. But there are intense and abnormal folks, whose 
attachments seem more trouble than gain. They are doubly 
unfortunate, for they waste happiness, and that is a sin. 
Their friendships are too intense to hold out; they mortgage 
their future for the joy of the moment — and have regrets 
and ashes later on. 

Between true friends who have a secure belief in each 
other there is an atmosphere of tranquil contentment. Each 
takes the other in a faith that abides, and defies everything 
short of a moral earthquake. But now and again one is not 
quite able to take his friend on such faith, but would know 
just what his friend thinks of him. This is really the first 
whispering of doubt; yet it is not an unnatural attitude for 
sensitive souls. But how can he know just what his friend 
thinks of him? Shall it be by what the friend says, what he 
does or how he looks — or by all three together? But the 
looks, words and acts appear not to be in entire accord; they 
don't quite agree. Then how shall he judge? 

In such a situation ten persons would have ten different 
shades of reaction. At the top of the list would be one who 
takes his friend fully, on faith in his attitude, character 
and past conduct. The tenth instinctively watches every 
word, act and look, for evidence of defection; and whosoever 
looks for such evidence usually believes he finds it. The 
top of the column is most fortunate of all; and there are all 
gradations down to the bottom. 

Some deny any true friendship or love without perfect 
understanding. This last is highly desirable, but impossible 



THE MARCHING YEARS 255 

if we mean understanding in every detail. To make it pos- 
sible one must know the mind of the other to the farthest 
limit; and that can never be. No telepathy goes to that 
length, or can go. No one can tell to the last word what his 
own mind and point of view are or would be in every possible 
situation. That would be necessary if the above rule is a 
good one. And if any man could know all the depths and 
angles of his own mind, he could not tell them all; and he 
would not if he could. 

A complete understanding between friends must mean a 
worthy and correct estimate by each of the other and of 
himself. But a correct estimate on the part of both is sub- 
stantially impossible; for each forms his judgment of both 
himself and the other, and he unavoidably fails at some point. 
As in a conversation, so in friendship and love between two 
persons, there are not merely two but six thinking beings 
concerned. There are you as you regard yourself; you as 
your friend thinks you; and you as you really are; and there 
is your friend as he thinks he is; he as you regard him; and 
himself as God sees him. 

Two people can probably never have these six personalities 
in complete harmony; nor do they need to. Through all 
memorial time people of many shades of mental and moral 
quality have traveled together over rough trails and smooth, 
and in all weathers — in friendship and love to the end, and 
without knowing they represented multiple personalities. 
There is only one safe way: That is to believe in each other, 
trust and defend each other always, unless the evidence of 
defection becomes irresistible — and even then that the one 
be true even though the other fails or seems to. But what 
about the desolation when the other does fail, and you see 
the wreck of an ideal? Is there any recompense? Yes, 
decidedly, in your own moral growth in having yourself been 
faithful. 

The trouble with many parlous friendships is that each 
guesses at the mind and motives of the other, and usually 



256 THE MARCHING YEARS 

guesses wrong. And we refuse to concede that we are guess- 
ing; we have a fatuous faith in our own intuitions, and refuse 
to the accused the poor benefit of a doubt. If our wrong 
guesses usually did credit to the friend, the world would 
be better; but three times out of four they discredit him, and 
not seldom discredit us. If these bad guesses could be told 
to the friends involved, there would be some of the most 
surprised folks on earth. Every person of experience knows 
of such surprises. I could name dozens of them. And if we 
interrogate a friend about some a.ct or word or omission, 
whether it did not mean an adverse arrow point directed 
toward us, and he denies it, we are reluctant to believe him, 
or unwilling to credit his denial to a wish to spare our feelings 
— and sometimes accuse him of outright prevarication. 

When we allow ourselves to get into such a state of raw 
nerves — if we are not born with it — the best and most lasting 
friendships are <j,ifficult or impossible. I have known life- 
long friendships to be blasted because of the misdirection of a 
letter or by an inadvertent slip in the complicated cogs of 
courtesy. A superior woman friend of mine married a man 
who was merely a friend, because the longed-for letter 
of proposal from the man she loved miscarried in the mail. 
She believed this love had cooled and was gone. The letter 
came after she married the other man; then she had thirty 
years threaded with the pathos of what might have been. 

What is the remedy? It is to cover the raw nerves with 
a protective dressing of unselfishness and joy in being a 
friend. Then we can truly be a friend to our friend, without 
pestering our nerves over the minute curves and angles of his 
attitude toward us. These angles and curves are his responsi- 
bility, not ours. Probably they are partly his idiosyncrasy, 
anyway. 

In my hearing one day a man said to another: " Is Mr. X 
a friend of yours?" The answer was: "I don't know if he 
is my friend, but I am his friend permanently." "Yes," 
was the retort, "but I hear he said so and so, which is very 



THE MARCHING YEARS 257 

reprehensible. " " Don't you believe it, " came back instantly, 
"I refuse to, until he tells me he said it. And if he did say 
it, and worse things, I am still his friend. " There was no 
skidding tire in that speech, and the earth seemed firmer under 
the feet of those who heard it. It spoke for the man who held 
his duty to his friend as his own first concern; and that 
character, made by the habits of a life and a record of years 
of conduct, entitled the accused to the faith of his friends. 
And in the welter of this life is there much that is finer than 
that? 

My counsel was once asked regarding two good women who 
had been close friends for many years — to be known here as 
Mrs. A and Mrs. B. They had long borne similar poverty. 
Both were superior, intellectual, fine in spirit, and in their 
sense of self-respect. They had always accepted many little 
gifts of friendship from each other with equal grace and 
pleasure. One day Mrs. A became suddenly wealthy, and 
her first thought was, out of her abundance to lighten the 
burdens of Mrs. B. But the latter would not take the gifts; 
she seemed to regard herself as humiliated if she accepted 
them, as though they must have been offered in a wrong 
spirit, which everybody else acquainted with Mrs. A knew 
was impossible. From being frank and joyous for many 
years, their friendship had suddenly run into a decided frost, 
and great was the perplexity of both of them. 

What counsel could be given in such a case? If the sensi- 
tive one had come for advice, she could have been told that 
she had too much egoistic pride; that her friend deserved 
no such suspicion as she had; that she had unfairly assumed 
in the other a vanity of riches (riches which she knew to be 
accidental) and a desire to parade gifts to a poor friend whom 
she looked down upon. But she was the last person in the 
world to have come for advice; and the other could only be 
told that she had discovered one of the many penalties of 
wealth; and that she ought to let this be a lesson of humility 
to herself, and to be even more steadfast to her friend than 



258 THE MARCHING YEARS 

ever before. At last accounts the two were trying to forget 
that there had been a frost, and to believe that the relations 
between them were the same as of old. But the relations 
were not the same, and could not be. They might be better, 
higher, and nearer the divine as a result of the strain — but 
they would be different. 

It is difficult or impossible to keep our friendship accounts 
in perfect balance. We have regrets that we have not always 
responded sufficiently to the kindness of our friends; that we 
have not sufficiently shown them gratitude. We have had 
greater regrets that possibly our friends have thought us 
cold and unresponsive. Then we at times fear that very 
effusive thanks for gifts received may annoy the giver, by 
implying to him that we guess his gifts might have been made 
for this purpose. Do you see the tangle? Some of us have 
been such constant debtors for favors received that if we had 
always given adequate acknowledgment of our obligations it 
might have materially lessened our capacity for the business 
of our lives, which ought to be in part to do good things for 
our friends. 

There are some outstanding rules of friendship that, be- 
cause of our tendency to blunder, we need to keep constantly 
in mind. It is a pity if the love we have had for any friend 
has led us to disloyalty to any other friend, or if it has led 
either of us to stumble, for our friendships ought always to 
elevate, never degrade us. Our friendship for another ought 
never to encourage him in his faults if he has any, or lead him 
to think we condone them. How rich are the results of our 
friendship to both of us, if he has lessened his faults, and we 
have reduced, because we have discovered, our own faults 
that may all along have been manifest to others! What a 
calamity — and what a common stumble it is — if in trying to 
help a friend we have neutralized our efforts by hinting at 
our own real or alleged virtues! That we give a great deal 
of thought to the failings of others is only too true. We have 
also sometimes overestimated the fine qualities of our friends ; 



THE MARCHING YEARS 259 

have we shown it in a way to lead them to grow egoistic and 
forget that they are of much the same clay as the rest of us? 
If so we have done harm, for we have created a disagreeable 
foible where we tried to please a friend. 

One of the minor faults that have marred our happiness 
in our friends is our hope and expectation of gifts to come; 
and our obsession that we must make gifts because we think 
they are expected. We behave like children looking for some 
present from their parents every time they come home from 
town, when they ought to be glad to have their parents home, 
and happy if gifts were not brought. The gifts we don't expect 
are the most precious ; and most of all to be prized when they 
seem to us more than we deserve. This experience gives us 
a mood of mind that helps us to banish two of the worst of 
emotions — envy and jealousy. Jealousy is a most demor- 
alizing emotion. It is a vice that makes us magnify 
what is or may be due to ourselves, and tend to ignore the 
rights of others. So it may lead us to overvalue our own 
merits, and take on airs that are always harmful. Envy is 
a close companion of jealousy; it is a trifle less offensive, but 
it is mostly a useless emotion ; it is often much worse than use- 
less, for it may retard our effectiveness and growth in grace. 
One of the most useless forms of it is envy of people who are 
rich in mere money. A helpful form of the emotion is envy 
of the fine personal qualities of others, and of the happiness 
they give those about them ; for these are riches that we can 
acquire and have. Money we may never acquire, and if we 
could it might demoralize us. 

The selfish demand for the sole possession of the regard 
of a friend is worse than plain jealousy and envy. And it is 
an emotion often harbored by certain close friends, notably 
friends among women. It has a dwarfing effect on the moral 
nature. When we find ourselves falling into such a shriveling 
tangle of egoism, we ought to go for a month into some retreat 
for solitude and meditation, and prayer to be spared from 
being a fool. 



260 THE MARCHING YEARS 

When one reaches the age of the long perspectives, the 
memory of helpful friendships through the years becomes a 
rare fortune, a continuing comfort that no thief can steal. 
It is one of the inalienable gifts of the human soul. 

In my own life of friendships two facts stand out as ground 
for contentment; one that my faith in others has usually been 
justified sooner or later by their conduct; the other that I have 
found stalwart virtues and dependable traits in most unex- 
pected quarters. So my faith in human nature has increased, 
not lessened, through the years, and this faith is in itself a 
fortune. 



THE END 



APPENDIX I. 

"THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. BRIDGE AND MR. MEDILL." 
"swallowed again." 
(From the Daily News, November 23, 1887. Editorial.) 
"A correspondent, 'F. W. R.,' asks the attention of the Daily News 
to the following, and wonders 'why this glaring instance of ignoring its 
own words, printed in one issue and traversed in the next, has been over- 
looked': 

(From the Chicago Tribune, November 19, 1887.) 
"Notwithstanding the palpable and glaring errors made by the judges in returning 
the vote upon the jury commission bill, only two sets of them will probably be called 
to account, and even that would have been denied had it not been for Dr. Bridge. 
The judge (Prendergast) was about to get away with that difficulty by ignor- 
ing it, when Dr. Bridge made a mild but firm protest, . . but was overruled 
by the vote of the other four members of the canvassing board, Messrs. Washburne, 
Coyne, Oehne and Prendergast." 

(From the Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1887. Editorial.) 
"Dr. Bridge, the alleged republican member of the board, appointed at the instance 
of the mugwump print, was wanting in his duty in not protesting against the Prender- 
gast ruling. If he is a republican in fact he should resign his position and permit the 
selection of some republican who will better attend to the duties of the office. He is 
an absolutely useless functionary, and the republicans — the dominant party of the 
county — have practically no representation on the board. " 

"'F. W. R.' can have but a limited acquaintance with Mr. Medill 
and his methods if he thinks a little thing like this would affect the vener- 
able old troglodyte. It is his custom to swallow himself two or three times 
a week, and he lives only as an illustration of the tolerance which use 
may breed a habit of in the stomach for the most noxious things. " 



"SCOLDING THE WRONG MAN." 
(From the Inter-Ocean, November 23, 1887.) 

"It was thought wise not to exercise a doubtful power and incur any 
unnecessary expense when no good could be accomplished thereby. 

"That appears to be what Judge Prendergast thought, and three 
other members of the board agreed with him. The fourth member, 
however, disagreed with his colleagues, and voted in favor of the investi- 
gation, and this fourth member, who held out and tried to get them to do 
what ye ancient editor is now scolding them for not doing, was none other 
than Dr. Bridge, the republican election commissioner who was asked 
to resign on Sunday last by ye ancient editor of ye gas trust organ because 
he did not protest. Further, the motion to pass the returns in accordance 
with Judge Prendergast's opinion was made by City Attorney Washburne, 

[261] 



262 APPENDIX 

a republican whom ye ancient editor is always glad to pat on the head in 
a fatherly and patronizing way. 

"His friends will doubtless excuse ye ancient editor by saying that he 
knew no better; that if he had known the facts he would not have said 
what he did. This will not excuse him in the eyes of honest people. If 
he means to be fair let him come out honestly and apologize to Dr. Bridge, 
then take the city attorney, who ought to know what the law is, and 
soundly spank him for 'jinin' in' with the wicked Prendergast to bury 
the corpse of the poor dear jury commission without asking ye ancient 
editor if they might do so. If he will do these things and then employ 
someone to keep him advised of what the actual facts are in regard to 
matters about which he intends to write, in time honest people may open 
their hearts in forgiveness to him." 



"DR. BRIDGE TO THE TRIBUNE." 

"the editor of the gas trust organ charged with something worse 

than falsehood." 

(From the Inter-Ocean, November 26, 1887.) 

"Chicago, November 25. 

" To the Editor— -When the average man lies about you wickedly and 
knows it, he will meet you sullenly on the street, refuse to say he has 
wronged you, and go on lying. You may be as gracious and serene as 
you please; he will continue to be dogged and nurse his spleen. The matter 
is always worse if it becomes public, if he has been exposed, and especially 
if he has been laughed at. It requires rather more grace and magnanimity 
than the average man has, to do the decent thing under such circumstances. 
It is evident the editor of the Tribune has no more grace than the average 
man. His editorial of this morning is the legitimate result of the scor- 
ing the Inter-Ocean gave him two days ago on his falsehoods about the 
republican election commissioner. Probably no exposure of his errors 
could lead him to correct the most wanton falsehood for which there was 
no remedy at law. He often enough knows he is wrong, but never says 
so. 

"The Tribune says I was absent from the sessions of the canvassing 
board till the sixteenth ward was reached. This is untrue. I was present 
at the opening of the count, at the closing of it, and a part of the time at 
most of the sessions of the Board. 

"No member of the Board was present during the whole count, nor 
has it been supposed to be necessary for all the members to be present 
every moment of the time, so long as it has always been the agreement 
that whenever any question of doubt or irregularity is reached in the 
count its consideration shall be postponed till all the members are present 



APPENDIX 263 

This rule and basis have never been departed from. All questions about 
which there could be the slightest doubt, all that touched the result of an 
election in any way have always been settled by the whole Board. 

"The Inter-Ocean is right that there was no legal ground for the 
investigation by the canvassing board of the returns from the precincts 
the Tribune is scolding about. It was only regarding one precinct in the . 
second ward and one in the sixteenth that there was such evidence, and 
had I not been overruled by the majority of the board no other good could 
have been accomplished by further investigation than the establishment 
of what I thought a good precedent. 

"The real trouble with Mr. Medill is, the jury commission law was 
defeated. I was the republican commissioner, and ought in his view to 
have counted it in. To have done what he suggests was impossible, and 
its attempt would have been a crime. 

"As to the epithets he bestows with such richness of grace upon me 
personally, in view of the performances of the Tribune of Sunday, after 
its truthful statement of Saturday, they are amusing. But the sublimity 
of freshness is reached when Mr. Medill says in this editorial — full of 
venom, of vinegar and fibs, and ignoring the lies of Sunday — that 'if he,' 
(the republican commissioner) 'had a particle of decency or sense of delicacy 
he would resign,' etc. 

"If this is really not play, or wholly aimed at the Inter-Ocean, the 
gentleman may know that the republican commissioner will serve out his 
term* — unless removed by death or the county court — and that he will 
continue to insist on every right the election law allows his party, as 
well as that the law be executed for all citizens, of whatever party or 
condition, with honesty and faithfulness. 

"Norman Bridge." 



"DR. NORMAN BRIDGE AND THE COUNTY HOSPITAL." 

(From the Tribune, November 28, 1887. Editorial.) 
"The Tribune does not wish to do injustice to anybody in its comments 
on political news; yet it appears that we unconsciously did some wrong 
to the professional reputation of Dr. Norman Bridge in certain remarks 
offered yesterday with reference to his action as a member of the Board 
of Election Commissioners. The passage objected to by Dr. Bridge and 
his friends was the following: 

'"His only public experience has been as a mild member of the Harrison Board 
of Education and as a member of the boodler-appointed Medical Board of the County 
Hospital. In the latter position his lack of experience and lack of knowledge led him 
into a grave violation of the law, which he had to publicly acknowledge — restoring to 
the public treasury funds which he had unlawfully collected from patients who were 
presumably paupers.' 

*Dr. Bridge had supposed his term expired December 31. 



264 APPENDIX 

"We are informed by Dr. Bridge that the part of the above extract 
relating to his connection with the medical staff of the County Hospital 
does him an injustice. He has never 'acknowledged, publicly or privately,' 
that he has been 'led into a grave violation of the law'; he has never re- 
funded any money to the county treasury; he does not now believe that 
he has 'unlawfully collected money' from patients in the hospital, or that 
he has violated any law. On the contrary, he declares and believes that 
all his acts run in accordance with the practice in such cases and were 
warranted by the authority of the Board of County Commissioners. Dr. 
Bridge admits that he sent one pay patient to the hospital and collected 
$50 in fees from that patient; but he has alwa3/s supposed that the patient 
referred to paid for her board, nursing and expenses incurred in conse- 
quence of her residence at the hospital. Her residence at the hospital 
as a pay patient was authorized, he says, by the practice of Warden 
McGarigle and the action of the County Board; and he believes that his 
conduct in the matter was in accordance with professional ethics and usage. 
The patient was not 'a pauper,' but one abundantly able to pay for 
treatment and for the conveniences afforded at the hospital, and he does 
not consider that in charging a fee from a hospital patient usage was 
departed from by him in any respect. Dr. Bridge is a man of admitted 
veracity, and one whose statements may be relied upon." 



(From the Inter-Ocean, November 29, 1887. Editorial.) 

"Ye ancient editor of ye gas trust organ, with the fear of the law 
before his eyes, published an article yesterday morning taking back some 
of his slanders on Dr. Bridge. After telling what Dr. Bridge said, ye 
ancient editor closes with the following significant remark: 'Dr. Bridge 
is a man of admitted veracity, and one whose statements may be relied 
upon.' 

"To fully understand the significance of this it is necessary to remember 
what Dr. Bridge said about ye ancient editor in the Inter-Ocean last 
Saturday. We quote from his letter as follows: 

" Now, with this letter before him and read of all men, ye ancient 
editor makes the above broad admission. Verily, verily, things more 
wonderful than the triumph of the gas trust come to pass now and then. 
The fear of the law works wonders sometimes. The great G. T. feared 
the law and bought out its tormentor. But words of humiliation and 
apology are less expensive than dollars to ye ancient editor." 



APPENDIX 265 

"STRANGER THAN FICTION." 
(From the Daily News, November 29, 1887. Editorial.) 
"The most pathetic incident we have met with in a long time is enti- 
tled 'The Strange Case of Dr. Bridge and Mr. Medill.' 

"Mr. Medill winds up a singularly erratic career by recanting every- 
thing he ever said or intimated; then he blows out the gas and goes to 
bed." 

(From the Inter-Ocean, December 1, 1887. Editorial.) 
"Dr. Norman Bridge, who has made so good a record as election 
commissioner, was yesterday treated to a surprise in the shape of the 
following letter: 

"'County Court, '-Chicago, November 30, 1887. 

" 'My Dear Doctor — Inclosed find certified copy of an order of the County Court 
appointing you to the office of election commissioner for the term of three years, 
beginning November 9, 1887. 

" 'Your discharge of arduous duties has been marked by such fidelity and ability 
that I deem it my duty to urge you to accept the burden for a new term. 

"'Yours very truly. 

Richard Prendergast.' 

"This was a surprise, because Dr. Bridge did not know that his term 
as commissioner had expired. . . . The compliment paid him by 
Judge Prendergast is well deserved, and whatever the doctor's personal 
inclinations may be, he ought to accept. The reappointment is based 
on the one year's good service of Dr. Bridge as election commissioner, and 
for this reason will be satisfactory to the great majority of citizens." 



"CAUSE AND EFFECT." 

(From the Daily News, December 2, 1887. Editorial.) 
"Dr. Norman Bridge is to be congratulated on the efficacy of the 
Tribune's attacks upon his conduct as election commissioner. His term 
expired November 9 last. The attacks began immediately after it was 
clear that the jury commission law was defeated. They continued until 
Sunday, November 27. He was reappointed by Judge Prendergast 
Wednesday, November 30, with warm approval of the 'fidelity and 
ability' with which he had discharged his official duties. This must be 
regarded as a signal, but by no means surprising, illustration of the 
relations between cause and effect. Honors naturally fall upon the head 
which does not bend before baseless insinuations and calumnies." 



APPENDIX II. 

(From the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, January 5, 1888.) 
"Dr. Norman Bridge, one of the attending physicians of Cook County 
Hospital, recently refused to treat as charity patients persons able to pay, 
but admitted to the hospital by political favoritism, and for his refusal 
was severely criticised by the Chicago Tribune. " 

In a subsequent issue the Journal printed the following: 

"NORMAN BRIDGE AND THE COOK COUNTY HOSPITAL." 

"Chicago, January 10, 1888. 
"Mr. Editor: 

"The Journal of the 5th inst. is in error in saying that I had refused 
to treat as charity patients persons able to pay, but admitted to the (Cook 
County) hospital under political favoritism, and for this refusal was severely 
criticised by the Chicago Tribune. 

"The hospital incident consisted simply in my sending a private 
patient to the hospital to board as a pay patient while I made a surgical 
operation for her, for which I received the usual fee. This was a con- 
venience for the patient, and was in pursuance of a regulation of the 
hospital long in vogue. The personal malice of the Tribune, growing out 
of other and chiefly political considerations, led that paper to charge — 
among the manifold wickednesses it has. attributed to me — that I had 
violated a rule that applies solely to the usual hospital or charity patients, 
that is, that doctors should serve without fee or reward. This rule was 
never violated to the breadth of a hair by myself or by any other attendant, 
so far as I know. 

"Very respectfully, 

Norman Bridge." 



[266] 



APPENDIX III. 

RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD. 

From a Long Lost and Lately Discovered MS., Here Printed as 
Showing the Difference between the Recollections of the 
Early Twenties and Those of the Late Sixties, as Revealed in 
the Main Narrative. 

Exactly the first thing I remember ever to have seen, thought or 
done I do not know, for several events which impressed me very forcibly 
seem so long ago that it is impossible to tell which came first. I distinctly 
remember having been a — rather large, perhaps — baby in my mother's 
arms, she having taken me, on an occasion when in sorrow, to quiet me. 
I have no idea that I was at all a precocious child; but the contrary, for the 
main reason why I remember this circumstance is that of her chiding me as 
being "too big a baby" to be held; besides, she has often told me — before 
I left home to live — that I never had been weaned, for I was always 
clinging to her apron strings, so it was no evidence of precocity that I 
remember my "babyhood." 

My first home was among the Green Mountains of Vermont, in the 
county of Windsor and town of West Windsor. It was a farm which had 
formerly been the poor farm of the town, and been bought a few years 
before my birth by my father and his father. It lies a mile or two from 
the little village of Sheddsville, which was too small a place to have a 
postoffice of its own, although it had a "store," to which letters were 
brought from Brownsville to be delivered to people living in the north 
part of town, and where letters were received for Brownsville. Letters 
addressed to West Windsor were always sent to Brownsville. 

The first home was about seven miles from Windsor village, com- 
monly with us called "the street." On the southeast, two or three miles 
away, in full view rose Ascutney Mountain, while high hills, both wooded 
and bare, surrounded us on all sides. Great rocks could be seen on many 
hills, while stone fences, stretching their dark and rustic lines in every 
direction, cut the hillsides and few level places into many small fields. 
A few fences of wood could be seen, some "crooked" or "snake" fences, 
some to which the farmers applied the adjective "bristle" or "pitchpole," 
some rail fences, but none of posts and boards. Aside from Mt. Ascutney, 
I think the farthest we could see was a mile and a half from home, and this 
in only one direction; half a dozen houses could be seen, and this to my 
first notion was the world, and the horizon the "jumping-off place," 
about which many grave questions were asked. Our house was on the 

[267] 



268 APPENDIX 

west side of a road running north and south; the road was lost on the 
south within twenty rods, as it wound around a hill, but could be seen in 
the other direction quite a distance, while a little way north of the house 
a road turned off in an easterly direction, which could be seen as it wound 
over the hill toward my Grandfather Bagley's house. Few persons ever 
passed on either road in the daytime who were not seen; and most often 
it was questioned as to the passers-by who they were, where they lived, 
where they were going, and what for. Hearing the rattle of a vehicle 
or the clatter of hoofs on the stony road without someone going to see who 
was going by was an offense hardly known among us. Ascutney was 
beautiful, although up to the time we left New England I had not learned 
to see much beauty in any natural scenery, except the deep forests in 
summer time or when carpeted in snow, but the vivid remembrance of 
that old peak, as well as the woods and hills I used to roam among, has 
given me many pleasant thoughts. Most of Ascutney was covered with 
trees, many evergreens, a few that changed color with the seasons, while 
on the southwest side were great masses of white rock. 

Near the fork in the road above referred to, between the diverging 
paths indeed, was a pond of a hundred or more feet in length, and half as 
wide when full, which was dry in midsummer. Some elm trees stood in 
the midst of and about it, and there was a little space between it and the 
roads; this with most of the pond was unfenced and common with the 
highway. This spot probably was the scene of more good times among 
the boys than any other one place ; in the spring we used to bathe and play 
in the pond — my brother and I — and when undressed would crouch 
down in the water so that only our heads could be seen by passers-by. 
We made rafts of boards and pushed ourselves about with poles, played 
with bunches of frogs' eggs which we found among the stones, or stood 
back on the bank and watched a muskrat as he rose to the top and sank 
again. Later we played with the "pollywogs, " tadpoles which were 
slaughtered in vast numbers as the pond dried up. The trunk of a dead 
tree stood near, which a red-headed woodpecker used to inhabit, and peck 
holes into. We used to watch her and wonder if her beak was of iron; we 
tried often to climb to where she had her nest, and succeeding finally, 
were annoyed to find it empty. Among the yellow weeds and grass 
near by, birds' nests were often found, but I don't remember ever to 
have robbed one of them. We used to visit them daily to see if the 
birdlings had hatched, and later to watch their development till they 
could fly. The instant opening wide of their mouths upon any noise or 
movement near by was a source of amusement, and we used to gather 
strawberries and feed them. 

The gathering of wild berries was one of our earliest amusements in 
summer time; with me it was especially pleasant, for most of my pickings 



APPENDIX 269 

I ate — and had a portion again with the family at meal time. Straw- 
berries we got on grassy knolls usually in the pastures, where they grew 
in abundance; the cattle and sheep seemed to shun such spots as sacred 
and not to be polluted by their feet or feasting; and they were sacred too, 
for as we sat down on the grass under the warm sun of early summer and 
ate and filled the dishes we had brought — each in size according to his 
industry — we laughed and talked and built air castles and laid plans for 
the future and for manhood. A few berries of a peculiar kind, sharply 
pointed and with a spicy fragrance, we used to find in the edge of the wood; 
and the reaching down after them among the plants and flowers of the 
forest, which are always tender looking and beautiful, the peculiar and 
very pleasant taste of the berry, with the sensation of coolness of the 
shade, made a combination of associations not soon to be forgotten. Red 
raspberries we picked by the fences where the bushes grew in large or long 
thickets among the stones; and later black raspberries, which grew more 
in clumps by the roadside usually; blackberries in large thickets and 
often in whole fields, where in their natural eagerness to spread themselves 
they had outstripped the farmers, who naturally enough wanted to stop 
them; mulberries by the walls we used to get in small numbers as we went 
for the cows, and were never guilty of bringing any home. Mother or 
grandmother often used to be company for us in our berrying; then we 
picked faster and ate less. He who has lived in or visited New England 
in the summer time and failed to pick wild berries has failed of one of the 
best of amusements — perhaps of some of the best of scratchings. 

Our house was partly ancient and partly modern; made in sections at 
different times, it was a long affair, and in its whole length used for a 
variety of purposes. Larger, more venerable and majestic than the rest 
stood the "old house," half a century or so in age, somewhat as a central 
figure; it was a story-and-a-half structure, very broad, and was painted 
red, or had been. It looked decidedly old, as it was. East of this was an 
old woodshed, which was perhaps the oldest structure of all. It had 
formerly been a house, I think. It always looked ready to fall of its own 
weight, and was taken down just before we removed to the west; still 
east of this shed grandfather had a little pig pen built, which was always 
inhabited by one pig. A tub of swill was kept always in summer in front 
of it, and when our grandparents went visiting, which was quite often, 
the boys were charged to give the pig so many dishes full of the mixture 
at noon — an injunction which to my knowledge was not seldom forgotten, 
to the great chagrin of the pig. In the woodshed were kept also grand- 
father's wagon and buggy. West of the old house was the "new house, " 
an unpainted structure of a later day, but which looked brown and 
dingy. It was one-story; still west of this was another house for swine, 
the "hog house." 



270 APPENDIX 

I remember less about the apartments for the swine than of the little 
low room overhead, where all the old hog yokes and various tools and 
trinkets were kept; as also the sap tubs, used in maple sugar time, which 
we used every spring to take down, drive tighter the hoops and fill with 
water, preparatory to sugar making. 

The whole house had been built on a sort of side hill, the knoll in front 
and the ground sinking under the western part of the structure. Under 
the "old house" a very good cellar had been made, which in autumn 
always received its complement of vegetables, apples and cider. Under 
half the new house was another cellar, which contained an ash pit, and a 
cauldron and furnace for boiling feed for the pigs, and for other purposes. 
Under the other half of the new house was an open space for wagons, the 
hill/in front so receding that they could be easily run in. From this space 
was a door opening into the last named cellar. So the structure was 
variously useful. 

In the east part of the old house grandfather and grandmother lived, 
using three rooms on the first floor. Here they spent several years that I 
remember, and I recall much about their home and life, for grandparents 
are always more indulgent to the children than parents. We were not 
long in finding this out and availing ourselves of the greater freedom of 
their apartment. With occupants that were old, rooms that were old, 
old paper on the walls, old windows and doors, fireplace and hearth of 
bricks, old stove, chairs, table, lounge and bedstead of generations before, 
their home bore decidedly an ancient look. The old clock in the corner, 
reaching nearly to the ceiling from the floor, with three rudely executed 
paintings on its dial plate, and with its case dingy ~>.nd dark with age, 
ticked the moments and struck in its clear bell tones the hours. From 
the ceiling in the kitchen hung hooks, upon which in autumn poles were 
placed to receive strips of pumpkin and strings of pared and quartered 
apples to dry. 

Grandfather was a valetudinarian, and had for years done little or 
no work, save his chores and the braiding of whip lashes from calf skins. 
This latter occupation he used to follow quite sedulously, and I have 
watched him by the hour cut with remarkable evenness his strands from 
the skin, bright russet in color, and smelling fragrantly of the tan bark; and 
then tie one end of a bunch of these of varying lengths to a chair back, 
and sitting in another chair braid his whip. An old pewter dish he had 
with water, from which he would wet his leather as he braided. The 
whip finished, he would roll it between two boards, to make it even and 
smooth. He sold his whips at the country store. 

He was constantly taking medicine; no day passed without it, and his 
chest of drugs and herbs was large and always filled; but his main potions 
were teas of herbs, such as smartweed and thorough wort, of which he 



APPENDIX 271 

always had one or more dishes on the mantel. This was good, for with 
such weak decoctions there was less danger of doing harm; besides, it 
furnished him exercise in the open air to gather the leaves in summer. 
His evenings, especially in winter, were spent upon the lounge, or bunk, 
as we called it, and my brother and I many times spent ours there with him. 
We crawled over behind him, lying half upon him, and teased him to tell 
stories. He always did this, and told the same half dozen tales over and 
over; and like some oft -repeated plays, they never lost their interest for 
us. They were all about wolves, bears and catamounts and the adventures 
the early settlers had with them. Grandmother the while was usually 
knitting with her big needles, with one thrust into her knitting sheath 
made of a roll of leather — one end tucked beneath her apron string — 
while from a single tallow candle or the little japanned lamp with a single 
wick there was given out just light enough to make everything look weird. 
She used sometimes to repeat to us some hymn or poem she had learned 
in her youth. One of her rhyming riddles used to please us; it closed with 
the lines: "Great drops of sweat ran down my side, and I, alas, by inches 
died. " The answer was a candle. 

She had always been healthy, and had worked hard. She wore old- 
fashioned, home-made dresses, a white lace cap on the back of her head, 
and a band of false hair on the front part, and spectacles with heavy silver 
bows. 

On account of ill health, grandfather always in the mornings remained 
in bed, while she made the fire and prepared breakfast. She always cut 
her kindling the night before. Her table, save when company was 
present, was spread with oilcloth instead of linen; her dishes were of the 
most ancient make, and the knives were rude, strong and narrow pointed. 
Milk porridge was often made, and my dishful was always forthcoming 
when wanted. She made apple pies with plain crust, and flavored with 
caraway seed; this I liked, and to this day I never taste a pie with caraway 
without my mind going back to those early days. 

In the upper story of the house was an unfinished room for general 
storage; farther on was one finished off, in which the boys and the some- 
time hired man slept. This last had been a room for the confinement of 
lunatics when the place had been a poor farm, and there were holes in the 
floor and ceiling, in which vertical bars were formerly put for a cage. 
One window opened out upon the old woodshed. In winter we had the 
bees for our companions, several hives being placed in a distant corner 
for protection from the cold and storms. 

In the storeroom was an ancient loom, where mother and grandmother 
wove carpets and linen cloth for towels and the like. To watch them work 
was always entertaining. We sometimes broke the flax, then to separate 
he tow would draw it through a hetchel (or hackle), a short plank with a 



272 APPENDIX 

thicket of upright spindles of iron. Grandmother carded and spun it, 
and mother wove it into towels and coarse cloth. She once made a towel 
and presented it to me as compensation for my labor, although she after- 
ward appropriated it to the general use of the family. She promised me 
another whenever I should get married, should such an event occur and 
she be living. 

The ancient New Englanders were wont to build in their houses 
monstrous chimneys with a very large base forming a part of the wall of 
several rooms, and a large fireplace for each, and with brick enough for 
a small house. When I was quite small ours was taken down and a smaller 
chimney without fireplaces put in its place. This saved space enough for 
a small bedroom, which was finished off in the place of the old structure. 
This feature of their dwellings was one of the main causes of the good 
health of the early inhabitants; for with such fireplaces they always had 
good ventilation, which in this time and country not one house in forty 
has. 

In the storeroom was a high doorway leading to an attic over the new 
house. The opening was about three feet square, and so high that we used 
to be obliged to climb to get through it. The attic was not lighted, and 
we used to climb over and play upon the joists and use our skill to keep 
from falling upon the lath and breaking through into the room below. 
There was a space of a foot or so between adjoining walls of the two 
houses, down which once fell a kitten, and made a task for the family to 
get it out. Under the eaves of the storeroom were kept all sorts of rubbish, 
around which and in the spaces each side of our bedroom we used to play 
hide and seek. Here often were piles of butternuts, which we used to 
crack and eat at our pleasure. I remember well my joy when I was first 
able to crack a nut holding it upright between my thumb and fingers 
without pounding them. 

Up here, too, was put the old meal chest of grandmother's, with its 
half dozen compartments. I think no flour was ever kept here, but 
India wheat (a brother to buckwheat, if not the same) and oats were; 
and we used to get old bottles and fill them with these varied sorts and 
play doctor, dealing out powders to each other. Here too was hung the 
corn for hominy, large yellow ears, which were gathered early and hung 
up to dry. Here was a barrel half full of beans, from which with unerring 
regularity a "mess" was baked — and baked long — every Week. This 
was a custom among the people. The families in the neighborhood, so 
far as I know, all of them had their baked beans and brown bread — both 
usually baked in six-quart pans, the process taking nearly all day. 

In the attic too was kept the old shoemaker's bench and kit of tools 
which my father had used in former times, when in youth he partly learned 
the trade of a shoemaker. During my memory he never molested it, save 



APPENDIX 273 

to mend or tap a little for the family or friends — and that rather reluctantly. 
Here the swifts for winding yarn were kept, here the reel which snapped 
when turned around a certain number of times. Also the hand reel was 
here — a stick a couple of feet or so in length, with a cross-piece on each end 
and at right angles to each other; the old spinning wheel, too, which mother 
often made to hum. 

The part of the house occupied by our family consisted of a living 
room, three bedrooms, a parlor, a pantry (buttery) and a kitchen. The 
family bedroom was large; indeed, it was used often as a sitting room. 
When quite small, brother and I slept there. In this room hung the family 
record, a rude print which early attracted my attention. A large eques- 
trian picture of Gen. Zachary Taylor, a large tablet like a map, hung here 
also. On the margin of this were several pictures representing scenes in 
General Taylor's army life, such as battles, marches, etc. I spent hours 
looking at this. It was put there during the political campaign which 
elected Taylor President. 

A few events associated with this room are well remembered, for this 
was the nursery, if any room in the house was. Once in this room when 
sick, castor oil had been ordered for me, and mother after vainly 
trying to induce me to take it called in father, who told me if I did not 
swallow it he would force it down me. It was taken at once, to be re- 
membered with a shudder ever afterward. Once, too, a sweat was ordered 
for brother and me — sage tea in quantities was given us, then we were 
put to bed and heavily covered with clothes. Soon I began to roll and 
kick off the covers to cool off, and succeeded in spite of all mother's efforts 
to the contrary. 

By the side of the passage to the pantry was a small cupboard built 
in the wall, high up. I had to climb up on a step to get to it. It was filled 
with trinkets, straps, strings and tools, among which last was a whetstone, 
which reminds me that I had a jackknife when young. The step spoken 
of was movable. On lifting it up a passage was seen leading down to the 
cellar, originally intended for dumping ashes down, but in my memory 
nothing ever passed through it save a gust of wind, which always came 
up when it was opened. 

The pantry beyond is well remembered, for here was kept all the 
cooked food for the family; cakes and pies there were often, and never was 
a pan turned bottom side up without my knowing what was under it. 
We were never charged to keep out of the room ; we would have found the 
temptation to go in too great, probably, to have obeyed any such injunc- 
tion, but seldom if ever did we take any food, especially pastry, clandes- 
tinely. High up on a shelf was kept a decanter of New England rum, 
which had formerly been a regular drink with all the people, but was 
gradually ceasing to be such. My father partook of it very rarely; 



274 APPENDIX 

indeed, only in haying time in the summer, as a general thing. Distinctly 
do I remember to have taken this down, when all the family, save perhaps 
my brother, were away, and poured into a tumbler a half teaspoonful, 
added sugar and water, and drank it. A few days before I had drained 
the bottoms of some tumblers from which a similar beverage had been 
taken in my presence by the men folks, and which had been left on the 
table, and this is how I got a taste of it and' learned how to prepare it. 
This act was never found out, but was never repeated, why, I don't know, 
unless the fear of discovery deterred me, and the fact that my mixture 
somehow did not taste just like the other. 

It was in this pantry or at the table in the large room that I used to 
watch mother knead her dough, roll it out and make pie crust, lay the nicely 
pared quarters of the apples in rows around the plate and put the cover on 
and make those little indentations around the edge with the prongs of a 
table fork. She would sometimes let me place the apples, after washing 
my hands, which was rich amusement (the apple placing, not the hand 
washing). 

I saw her cut out and twist the doughnuts, then drop them in the hot 
lard; saw them sink to the bottom, then come up bubbling to the top as I 
waited anxiously for the first one to get done, to be appropriated to my 
own use. Here I saw made the bread, biscuits, johnny-cake and brown 
bread, and the pumpkin pies (of which a modern poet has sung), and here 
I got the first parcel of dough to shape into an image of a man. 

I am surprised almost when I think how vividly I remember all those 
household functions that I saw my mother perform in those days, and as I 
think of it I can see her again moving about that room engaged in cooking, 
washing, ironing or mending garments and darning stockings; spinning, 
weaving or making frocks for us boys. These operations were watched 
closely, and questions, many necessary, but more unnecessary, were asked 
about them all, for they were not merely curious to me at that age, but I 
was directly interested in many of them, especially in the cooking and in 
the garments being made for myself. And the wool was often watched 
closely in all the processes through which it passed, from the crude state 
till it found lodgment on my person; and then, like the urchin who was 
anxious to have everybody see his new boots, I felt perceptibly taller. 

In connection with this living room, too, the cradle of the baby is 
well remembered. When I was seven years old a sister was born; and 
when she was old enough to be lulled to sleep by rocking, this was often 
my task, and I well remember having not to only rock her to sleep, but 
being left to sit by the cradle and rock her whenever she began to wake 
up. My mother often left me and went upstairs to spin or weave, and 
once in a while in spite of my rocking the baby would persist in waking 
and crying — in the latter she indulged quite freely when small — then 



APPENDIX 275 

mother would come down and relieve me, and I would go out to play. 
And mother sometimes seemed to suspect me of waking the baby. 

The barns and farm yards were of almost equal interest with the 
house; here was the scene of the sports at the cold season of the year, 
when the boys were visited by their comrades, and here there was no danger 
of disturbing the baby or interrupting older people in reading or conver- 
sation ; here were the mows of hay, and the corn in the stalk, as it had been 
cut and brought from the field, piled up on the floor; here too was put the 
pile of pumpkins, red, yellow and green, with long and short stems, 
curly and straight. Upon the hay we romped, and through it we dug 
tunnels — long, narrow, round passageways, reaching through and around 
the mows. Upon these we spent days in enthusiastic effort, pulling and 
tugging like beavers. Under the barns in some places the space was not 
more than two feet in height. We used to crawl under here on our hands 
and knees after hens' nests, and would come out covered with cobwebs, 
dust and dirt, and usually without eggs. The cattle, horses and sheep were 
all known to us by countenance and name. To see them eat was fun, espe- 
cially to see the cows munch pumpkins and the sheep nibble beans; then we 
took delight in seeing the forkfuls of hay taken to them and seeing them try 
to outstrip each other in getting most ; they were of interest to us in another 
light, for on a pleasant winter evening several of us would get together and 
play I-spy and slide down hill till we were tired of such work, and we 
would catch the young cattle by the tails and strive to see which of us could 
hang on longest without the animal in its fright and effort throwing us off. 
This, when we were caught at it, was the cause of some chastisements 
which I don't care now to reflect on. The barns were two, partly 
forming two sides of the barn yard; between them and the house was a 
corn barn, as we called it, and by it was the watering trough. The water 
was brought to this (it was a large, wide, deep trough made of planks) 
by a lead pipe some twenty rods from a spring, and emptied, in a small 
stream through a quill put through a cork in the end of the pipe, into a 
little bucket which was placed above the trough, and over the sides of which 
the water trickled into the trough. This was at one end of the trough, 
which projected beneath the fence — or through it — outside the yard; and 
from this bucket it was that we got water for the house. When small, I 
often wondered how the water rose in the pipe to empty itself into the 
trough, and my wonder did not cease when I learned the principle of the 
water rising as high as its source, for to this day as I see it in memory it 
seems to me that the spring was no higher than that part of the pipe at 
the barn which lay in the ground. 

By the side of the corn barn was a shed for farm tools, containing 
also a grindstone which, when I got large enough, it was my task to turn. 
I did not like this; it was too hard, and it is only pleasant to recall as it is 



276 APPENDIX 

pleasant to think of any severe task which we have finished. Axes at 
times, but mostly scythes in haying time, and knives were the tools to be 
ground. 

Our door yard was not fenced ; it had to be crossed in getting from the 
road to the barns. Directly in front of the house stood a maple tree, 
old, staid and beautiful. A robin used regularly to build her nest here and 
rear her young. She built it near the top of the tree, but if she fancied 
the boys did not keep posted as to the number of eggs and the time of 
hatching and the flight of the birdlings, she was mistaken, for the branches 
of the tree came down so low that we could climb it. Just back of the 
tree was a stone wall, which on the door yard side rose not more than a 
couple of feet, but on the other side it was twice as high, the door yard, as 
it were, being a terrace. On the other side and close by it grew flowers and 
shrubs, a bunch of yellow lilies, sweet william, bunches of striped grass in 
which we could never find two spears exactly alike, although we often 
hunted, unwilling to believe the story that no two ever grew alike. Then 
there was here a bed of lovage. This is remembered for its odor. It was 
as fragrant as onions and a hundred times more pleasant. Mother used 
the large hollow stalks, cut in little rings, for flavoring pickles and other 
condiments. There was a lot of grape vines which never bore fruit. 
Further on toward the road was a shed for hives of bees. We could reach 
its top from the wall, and we have lain many hours, stretched out 
upon its roof and looked over its front edge to the bees at work, to see them 
come home with their hind legs loaded with red, brown and yellow masses, 
and go into their hives — and the file of bees that came out empty of such 
loads, and flew away. 

In these hives there were drones — large and lazy — that were always 
driven out by the smaller and more industrious of the swarm. Farther 
on, near the road, was a monster dense cluster of rose bushes, which used 
to blossom so thickly that they appeared above the wall as a mass of red 
glory. It was beautiful, and filled the air with its fragrance. We used 
to gather the roses to take to school with us. We ate the petals, or 
plucked and threw them in each other's faces. We watched them as from 
the little buds they became full blown, and then grew pale and withered. 

Notwithstanding our frequent quarrels, we boys were happy, and 
undreamt of were the cares and trials, the rebuffs and the riper joys of 
maturity — and the Providence that should, in the strength of his early 
manhood, carry that beloved brother to his soldier's grave. 

Very early — at what age I cannot tell — I was taken by my parents 
one day on a visit to Uncle Zeal and Aunt Emily, near by. The old folks 
were talking about the new railroad which had just been built through 
Windsor village. One Jira Hammond was sitting in the room. Jira 
heard, or thought he heard, the whistle of a locomotive. No sooner had 



APPENDIX 277 

he told it than the whole company rushed to the door to listen, as though 
all their lives depended upon their ability to hear the novel noise. (The 
railroad had just been finished to Windsor village, some miles away.) 
This was when I was quite young, for it was, I think, the first time I 
remember to have visited this uncle's family. I was taken to their house 
soon after this — or it may possibly have been before — to the funeral of 
one of their children, a boy, Henry, who had played with me at my home, 
and who in his coffin, when my father held me up to look at him and told 
me who it was, looked so lifelike that I called his name and asked him to 
come and play with me — it was my first vision of the dead. 

I now know that he was three years and eight months old. He was a 
little older than I — and this marks the date of my beginning of memory, 
at about three and one-half years of age. It was about this time that 
I began to enjoy buggy riding, and now began a habit which was more 
pleasant to me than agreeable to those around me, that of teasing father 
for a ride, and to go with him when he harnessed his horse. Here I first 
consciously reasoned on any subject. I wondered how the horse knew 
which way to go and what road to take in going to town. My inquisitive- 
ness was greater than my observation, for I had not observed enough to 
take cognizance of any reins or any details of a harness, and in my imagina- 
tion the horse, hearing my father's reply to my inquiry as to where he was 
going, had got a clue to the course to take, and thus my teasing and quizzing 
were of vital importance. Can anything more stupid be imagined, even 
for a small boy? 

It must have been the next winter that our folks moved to Windsor 
village to live, where we remained about three years, so that a large part of 
my earliest remembrances were of that place. Indeed, the settled memory 
of my early home in the country was the fruit of a season subsequent to 
this sojourn. Purely as a matter of guesswork, I should state the popula- 
tion of Windsor at this time to have been 1,000 — a village situated on the 
Connecticut River, very pleasant and inviting in some of the parts, but 
quite the opposite in others, with several long streets, with trees of the 
maple and other woods lining and shading some of them. The streets 
are laid out with a view somewhat of obviating the impediment of the 
hills, for the village, although on the river, is on ground quite hilly, and 
the main street running north and south had on its east side part of the 
way a steep declivity, so that some of the houses on that side are twice as 
high on the back side as on the front. It was in one of these houses that 
we lived. It was a large house, and our people kept boarders. 

Besides the entrance in front there was one from each end into the 
basement. To one of these from the street there was a stairway leading 
down outside. The stairs were of square hewn logs, and along the outside 
there was a large bar or railing, against which there were slabs of marble 



278 APPENDIX 

leaning. These belonged to the marble cutter — West was his name, I 
think — who had a shop next door. Now this marble man and his shop 
were sources of much amusement to me, and some chagrin. He was 
much given to perpetrating jokes on me, and that was a very easy thing 
to do, for when young, as well as later in life, I was exceedingly green. 
I had freckles on my face, and he used to tell me to go home and clean 
the fly specks from my nose. Once after eating some chokecherries, he 
asked me, on observing that my tongue was black, what negro I had 
exchanged tongues with. I was so chagrined that I went home and asked 
my mother what I could say to him mean enough. She told me to go back, 
put my thumb to my nose, wiggle my fingers and say "spoons" to him. 
I did so, and was never molested again by him. It was the daughter of 
this man who was my first schobl teacher, she having taught a class of 
juveniles in her father's house. She was very kind to us all, taught me the 
alphabet, allowed us to play and take our naps in the schoolroom. Some 
of the oldest of the girls she taught sewing — piecing bed quilts was the 
work they did. Her mother disliked children, as I found from experience. 
Two of her brothers had a shop in their woodshed, where they manufactured 
kites. I watched them do this, and fly them, with much interest, but 
failed to see the need of the long tails they made for them. 



APPENDIX IV. 

A LETTER TO A FRIEND. 

August, 1912. 

My Dear Friend: Your quandary about some of the current political 
and economic issues in this country is not surprising, and you have a lot 
of good company in perplexity. 

The great trouble with our study of such questions is that it is next 
to impossible to consider them calmly and with complete candor. The 
moment we begin to consider them our self-interest, the opinions of friends, 
the fashions of the hour and our preconceived notions, make a force of 
prejudice that is hard to discount or overcome. 

Probably for world economy free trade is justified as an academic 
proposition. " Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest one the 
world over" is an attractive motto, especially for college professors. If 
we can buy firearms, explosives, machinery, sugar and other goods abroad 
cheaper than we can make them at home, why not do it and let our workers 
in these industries change their occupation, work at some other employ- 
ment? The woman operatives could go out to domestic service in the 
large cities where there is a demand for them, and the men are much needed 
on the highways, railroads and farms. Only, with free trade in this 
country the farming business as well as the manufacturing would have to 
be reorganized, and there would be fewer crops raised. Sugar beets and 
citrus fruit growing would go out of fashion and numerous other changes 
would come about, but the farmers could find something to grow. And 
the nation would survive if its industries were reduced in number by a 
large percentage. 

In making the changes of occupation, in pulling up the family stakes 
and getting readjusted in new work, often in distant states, there might 
be some hardships, loss of money, necessary breaking up of families and 
incidental sorrows, but this would not be worse than many other of the 
exigencies and accidents of life compel us to suffer. 

People bear hardships well if great numbers have to take them together 
— they even laugh at each other and joke about them. Once in Chicago 
I saw some thousands of people burned out of their homes, many of them 
losing all their possessions save the clothes they then wore (and some of 
these were scanty enough), but there were few expressions of grief, and 
there was much cheerfulness, of a sort. Many of the "Titanic" victims 
were cheerful under difficulties, some of them graciously deferred to each 

[279] 



280 APPENDIX 

other in privileges, and some even played musical instruments while the 
ship was sinking. 

This reasoning is of course specious and has elements of nonsense. 
The subject must be viewed with the human and material elements as 
they are. As a people most of us are fixed in our homes, our associations 
and our industrial pursuits. While the rich can change their occupations 
with moderate trouble and even lose much of their property and still live 
comfortably, wage earners cannot do this, and if they are compelled to do 
it by the ruin of their industries through purposeful human agencies, they 
will rebel in some way. You cannot change human nature ; their rebellion 
may not be wise; for the moment it may even do more harm than good, 
but it will be rebellion, and it ought to be. Any party or policy is a 
menace to the nation if not to society, when, without some adequate 
equivalent, it threatens the homes and livelihood of great numbers of 
toiling people. 

On account of the difference in cost of manufacture here and abroad 
many of our industries are kept alive by a protective tariff. Some of 
the duties are excessive and have led to abuses by protected interests 
that have combined to keep prices too high. The remedy is to lower the 
tariffs, but the reduction does not need to destroy the industries. 

The impulse comes to many, because of such abuses, to wish to destroy 
the tariff entirely or rob it of its protective influence. But this is as 
foolish as it would be to destroy the railroads because they have some- 
times abused their powers. We have regulated the railroads fairly well 
to the advantage of both the roads and the people; and we can, if we will, 
do the same thing with the tariff. 

The fact is that until recent months we have never taken the first 
step toward making an equitable tariff bill. Now we have a Tariff Board 
that is working to ascertain what duty on each essential article is needed 
to ensure its home production without business demoralization. Here- 
tofore our tariffs have been made by taking the testimony of the people 
directly interested, as to how much duty they needed respectively, and 
they have rarely stated it too low. On a few occasions some of the 
different manufacturers have disagreed, as was the case in framing the 
last tariff bill. Then Mr. Carnegie and Judge Gary said the iron and 
steel industries needed no protective duties, but the small operators said 
that they did need protection. Our senators and representatives in 
Congress have traded and log-rolled industriously, each to secure for his 
constituents the protection that he believed the majority of them thought 
they needed. Could any method be better calculated than this to throw 
together a tariff bill that would be an absurdity of misfits, if it did not 
make some undeserving men richer and some other people poorer? 



APPENDIX 281 

You are asking, as I am, if it will be possible for our senators and 
congressmen to agree to a correct and scientific tariff when we learn what 
that is — for we are as certain as fate, sooner or later, to learn it through the 
Tariff Board or some other means. Some of them will be terribly squeezed 
between the facts and the clamor of their constituents for more privileges. 
"War will be made on the figures of the Tariff Board, but it will be a losing 
fight if the figures are made with such care and research as the present 
Board has used. 

As to what the parties offer us, the democrats say, "tariff for revenue 
only," and that most of the duties are too high. But the present tariff 
does not furnish enough revenue. The republicans in framing the last 
tariff bill had to tax corporations to take care of the deficit, and many of 
them now advocate an income tax to meet further reductions in duties. 

But the policy of the democrats is to discard the Tariff Board and 
all scientific study of the needs of a protective tariff, and to go back to the 
absurd grab-bag methods. What assurance does such a policy offer of 
better results than we have had in the past? None. If they could carry 
out their schemes they would cripple some of the largest industries of 
the country and disturb and depress the lives of an army of workmen. 

If they, or any party in power, would reduce the duties to the lowest 
possible point without endangering our industries, nobody ought to com- 
plain. The deficit of revenue could be made up by internal taxation of 
some sort without hardships. But they spurn the only means under the 
skies that can enable us to make a sane tariff law. They are bent on 
leaving the gate wide open for their own individual selfishness. They 
are like the so-called progressives in their despising of the Constitution. 
They are unwilling to be bound by any rules that will prevent themselves 
from hasty, selfish and arbitrary legislation. 

The present democratic house of representatives has shown what the 
party will do if it can. It passed a bill that, had it become a law, would 
probably have closed some scores of factories, ruined some millions of 
property, and stopped the business of thousands of wage earners. 

The so-called progressive party has a tariff policy for political purposes. 
It is brought forward because the party had to have some policy on this 
subject, so it turns aside from its obsession of vengeance against one man 
in favor of another, to restore the government "back to the people," 
to say that the tariff must be revised, but in the interest of all the people. 
Could anything be more sweetly childlike? It is as much as to say that 
if they get control of the Government everybody shall be unselfish and 
very good. 

But all animal life, including mankind, is selfish, always has been and 
always must be, otherwise the race would run down and die. And 
the first and only serious step ever taken toward a tariff "for all the 



282 APPENDIX 

people" is Mr. Taft's plan of a Tariff Board to ascertain how we can 
create such a tariff. Heretofore no party has known how to do it, even 
if it was disposed to do it. But the tariff is too practical, difficult and 
vital an issue for the new party to tackle seriously. These people must 
have easier and more personal shibboleths, like "thieves," "robbery" and 
the "bosses." The Tariff Board project, to be effective, must be a sus- 
tained, steady, permanent policy of government. The democrats repudiate 
it. Do you seriously think the personal, independent party offers hope 
of such stability and continuity? Moreover, on this subject, as on many 
others, statesmanship and safety require that we shall agree, not only to 
the Constitution, but to other rules as well, that shall guard us against 
hasty, inconsiderate and arbitrary action that may be unfair to minorities 
and the defenseless generally. Such is not the policy of the new party. 

You say, "Have not the people been robbed of their rights by the 
bosses?" Noi This has always been a government of the people. The 
people have always ruled, if they would. If all or even most of the people 
entitled to, come out and vote, they have their rights and they rule. 
Boss-rule is a thing invited by neglect of civic duties on the part of most 
of those who complain. 

There have been bosses in plenty and in all parties, even in the latest 
party. The bosses are simply the forceful people who give attention to 
politics and have many followers and friends. There are good and bad 
bosses; and the bad ones have substantially always been turned out when 
the good people have taken the trouble to go to the polls and vote against 
them. You cannot abolish personal leadership from politics any more 
than you can from business, religion or art; nor would you. The most 
positive examples living, of such leadership, are Roosevelt, Johnson and 
La Follette. They are among the good bosses by their own confession. 

It is in the air that the people have as good representatives and as 
good a government as the average of themselves. But this is not strictly 
true; it is true that the people have generally had as good a government 
and as good representatives as they deserve. Both government and 
representatives have often been below the average of all the people, 
including those who abstain from voting. So far has the neglect of our 
political duties gone that many of our best people boast that they never 
go to the polls or "mix in politics," and they discredit those who do. 
Have such people any ground for complaint of being boss-ridden? Rather 
they get what they deserve, or less than they deserve, for to their sins of 
neglect of a civic duty they add that of pride in their neglect. 

But have not the people been betrayed by their representatives in 
legislative bodies? In a few instances, yes. When such things have 
occurred, the people have sometimes sent back better representatives. 
They substantially always have had the power to do this if they would 



APPENDIX 283 

only use it. But now we are told that to remedy this "robbery" it is 
necessary for the people to legislate and govern directly by their votes 
through the initiative, referendum and recall. These remedies are whole- 
some or unwholesome, according to circumstances. They are rarely or 
never used except when the people are moved by anger and a sense of 
outrage. If there is a bad elective officer, the remedy is to recall him, or 
try to. If a bad legislature or common council refuses to pass a law 
popularly demanded, invoke the initiative. If an unwelcome law is 
passed, use the referendum and repeal it, as a small minority of the people 
of Los Angeles did recently with the ordinance protecting them against 
tuberculous milk. All these cases mean anger and a sense of outrage on 
the part of those who invoke the new devices, not the power or disposition 
calmly to consider and thrash out knotty questions and reach wise results. 
The new methods require for their wholesome exercise deliberation on the 
part of voters, their continuing study of civic questions, and fourfold 
the general knowledge of these that is required for representative govern- 
ment. Do you think the voters will rise to this duty while most of them 
must earn their living and follow the fashions? With all your serene 
faith, you are hardly credulous enough to believe that. 

But you say, "Have not the people the right to what laws they want?" 
Yes, the laws they want (not necessarily and for the strenuous moment 
what laws they may wish) and when most of the people can be consulted. 
They never are all consulted, for in direct legislation it is those with a 
sense of outrage and their friends and enemies who do most of the voting. 

While these three powers for popular safety are at times useful, they 
are expensive. Invoked often, they tire the people, as well as disgust 
some of them, who more and more refrain from voting, and so put control 
of the government into the hands of progressively smaller minorities. 
Evidence is growing that they may be their own corrective, for in certain 
quarters citizens are coming to look with suspicion and disfavor upon any 
petition for either of these measures unless the abuse to be corrected is 
widely felt, and felt to be intolerable. 

You ask if the rich people, with their rapid increase in numbers and 
wealth, are not stealing rights away from the poor. That is a most 
natural question. You say the rich spend^ money lavishly to pass laws 
for the spoliation of the poor. But as long as one man has as much 
voting power as another, and as long as the poor people are a great majority 
of all, they can, if they act wisely, maintain their rights. They often vote 
unwisely, chase rainbows, and scatter their influence. They need to 
study and concentrate on those measures of amelioration that are attain- 
able and may be permanent. When they do this — and they are capable 
of it — they will have a power that will be as irresistible as it will be whole- 
some for the nation. 



284 APPENDIX 

What are the rights of the poor people? They are the natural rights 
of all people. One is a place to stand on the earth. Unhindered in 
avarice, a few men might conceivably come to own the earth and most 
of the personal property — and that would never do. Every man has the 
right to a living if he will work and respect the rights of others — not a 
champagne, silk and porterhouse steak living, but a living that makes 
for health and contentment, and not dissipation. That is axiomatic. 
And it ought to become axiomatic that the poor man has a natural right 
to a better chance in the race of life than the rich. Riches are odds in 
favor of their possessor; they are a call on the labor and substance of the 
world. The poor should have odds of some other sort. The making of 
a fortune is often due to personal superiority of some sort, and another 
man — not you — is asking if one has not a natural right to the unlimited 
use for himself of his own superiority in the making and using of money. 
The only safe answer is no, not unlimited so long as we live in communities 
that we wish to have secure and peaceable. " No man liveth unto himself " 
in society; every man owes something to his fellow- men, and the rich owe 
most because they have most. 

You cannot stop the accumulation of money, and you would not if 
you could, for it is an ambition of most men of our kind of civilization. 
Nor can you kill the millionaires, for most of those in America began 
life with nothing and worked for small wages, and many now so working 
will become millionaires. 

It is true that measures ought to be found to make it progressively 
difficult for people to accumulate enormous wealth — and many such exist. 
The best of them are the inheritance tax laws, which give to the public 
a portion of every large fortune at the death of the owner; and such laws 
are hard to evade, since all large estates are revealed finally through the 
courts. 

Popular sentiment is rapidly growing toward a national income tax, 
so graduated as to bear lightly upon the poor. This is, of all tax measures, 
the most just, and it is possible to execute it efficiently in this country. 
By the initiative of President Taft we are, I hope, soon to have a consti- 
tutional amendment that will make such a tax possible. 

With all their alleged wickedness, there was never a time in all history 
when people of wealth were so conscious as now of their duty to the 
public. Already several hundred millions of dollars have been given to 
education and to institutions for the alleviation of suffering and for the 
prolongation of life in this country. 

There is evidence that our currency is too abundant; hence the high 
cost of living. If the currency should be contracted, prices would fall. 
They always do under such circumstances. The regulation point of the 
world's economies has risen because of the increase of circulating money. 



APPENDIX 285 

But this is probably not the sole cause of the high cost of living here and 
in Europe, for we have philosophers who tell us that the cause is among 
these: The tariff, the trusts, the flowing of population to the cities, and 
the work-day of eight hours. 

You ask if a change in administration would not bring down the cost 
of living. No, but a financial panic would, for it would contract the cur- 
rency in circulation. It would also depress business, shut down shops 
and throw men out of work. 

How can a panic contract the circulation? By scaring people who 
have money in banks, so they draw it out and hide it in safety boxes, 
pockets and stockings. There are a hundred-fold more safety vault 
boxes than there were thirty years ago, and the people are not less timid. 
What makes a financial panic? Sudden loss by the people of faith 
in each other's financial safety — then begin runs on the banks, the hiding 
of money, the halt in buying goods and in building new industries. Then 
men go about with the best bonds and other valuables, vainly trying to 
borrow money on them for their urgent needs; then some foreign banks 
refuse to pay money on letters of credit, and some American travelers 
are stranded abroad. 

What makes this sudden loss of confidence that starts a panic? It 
is the dawning upon the people that they have been running their business 
and speculative dynamos at a reckless rate. Suspicion is contagious; 
in times of high tension it starts at the rolling of a pebble; it spreads 
rapidly, and a squeeze in one part of the country soon affects all the 
rest, because we are so interdependent in our business relations. 

Can panics be prevented? Not entirely, but their severest shocks can 
be, if the people in times of pressure can borrow money on good securities 
like bonds and their equivalent, for this enables them to go on with their 
unavoidable expenses until conditions become settled and confidence 
returns. 

The best remedy must be some means for the quick issue of temporary 
money to take the place of part of that withdrawn from circulation and 
hoarded, the temporary issue being retired the moment it ceases to be 
needed — this to be compelled by heavy taxation of it. Such a measure 
would add a quality of flexibility to our currency that it has never had, 
but ought to have. The advanced foreign nations have such flexibility 
in their money, and so have escaped most of the calamities of financial 
panics that we have had to bear. 

Why do we lack legal means for so good a purpose ! Because Congress 
refuses to pass a good bill for that purpose now before it and drawn by 
the ablest minds in this country. It refuses because the democratic 
party is afraid its passage might bring some advantage to its opponents, 
and because some sincere republican progressives like Mr. La Follette 



286 APPENDIX 

believe the bill would put increased power into the hands of a few big 
bankers in New York and Chicago. The fact is the bill reduces the power 
of these men. 

There is one sovereign remedy for the high cost of living, namely, 
increase of income — more wages. Nobody ought to complain if all busi- 
ness transactions and wages were on the same scale. But there are several 
obstacles to such a solution. First, many employers forget to raise wages 
when they can afford to. Then, some employers, with severe competition 
and low profits, cannot raise wages and escape bankruptcy — they would 
go to the wall if they attempted it. But their employes believe that they 
are disingenuous when they say they cannot afford to raise wages. Then 
the employers think their workmen are unreasonable; hence the need of 
laws for arbitration of wage disputes. 

Another difficulty is that a large number of people have small, fixed 
incomes that cannot be raised, and higher living expense is to them often 
a grievous hardship. They are lucky when the currency contracts and 
unlucky when it expands; and when times are easy they save money for 
future trouble less often than they discover needs for more luxuries. 

There is one personal and very practical remedy for the high cost of 
living. We can cut down or cut out some of the costly items, and without 
harm to our totality of pleasures, health, longevity or capacity for work. 
People in this country on the average probably eat double the amount of 
lean meat that they need, and they could all with ultimate benefit do 
without such brain drugs as tea, coffee, tobacco and alcoholics, not to 
mention other so-called table luxuries, and many other items of living 
expenses that contribute solely to expensive and needless pleasures and 
display, and are chiefly indulged in at the behest of fashion. 

As to candidates for the presidency, Mr. Wilson is personally above 
reproach. Temperate and staunch, he would make a strong President. 
But he has at or on his back the democratic party. And that party is 
trying to destroy the protective force of the tariff, as well as to destroy the 
essence of our civil service reform (after forty years of struggle to establish 
it) and send us back to the old basis of spoils of office. 

The history of Mr. Roosevelt is known to most of the people, who are 
now divided into two groups, those favoring him and those against him. 
Among the latter are thousands who were formerly his ardent admirers, 
and who feel that he has degraded the ex-presidential character, as he has 
outraged the devotion of these former admirers by proving that he has 
the bad qualities and unreliability that his enemies said he had. His 
campaign is a personal one, largely founded on hate, egoistic and quixotic, 
and without sane policies that are either novel or necessary. His claim 
of stealing at the Chicago convention is untrue. His managers tried to 
steal there, and are planning other stealings next fall, while he and they 



APPENDIX 287 

are browbeating many of their embarrassed friends with threats of local 
reprisals if they do not violate their personal obligations. They would 
place on the ticket of the republican party for electors names of men 
pledged to vote against the nominees of the party. Some of them retain 
official positions in the republican party while joining in the formation of 
another party whose purpose is to destroy it. And when an honest 
senator, elected by 'their own faction, rebukes them for this ''treachery 
of the worst kind" they first ask him to resign, and then attempt to defend 
their conduct as the only "legal" means by which, as they say, they can 
make head against their opponents. Legal, because in California such 
offenses are not punishable in jail or penitentiary, but outside of them. 
And some of these people have been admitted to the bar. They are 
attorneys, if not lawyers. 

Mr. Taft's history is also well known. It is prejudiced partisanship 
to say that he is not progressive, for he has advocated and helped enact 
more progressive measures than any other president, and he has by his 
official power and influence brought about more of them than any other. 

Nor is it any fairer to say that he is weak or lacks courage; indeed, 
to say this is disingenuous if not dishonest. It took consummate courage 
to write some of his vetoes, which he knew would be criticised as poor 
politics, but which he knew were good statesmanship, to be finally justi- 
fied of history. 

His mistakes! Everybody makes mistakes, and he has made fewer 
than most men with like problems and responsibilities. 

His faults! They are such as come of zeal in duty, in candor and 
frankness with the people, in conscientiousness and magnanimity. And 
you are too good a citizen to condemn any man for that sort of zeal. 

Mr. Taft, as President, has shown all the courage, honesty, industry, 
good intentions, dignity and statesmanship that Mr. Roosevelt said 
years ago that he possessed. He has been a President for sane, thoughtful 
and fair men to be proud of; and he has shown patience of the highest 
order with the wave of unjust, groundless, even hysterical criticism, that 
has been aimed at him. He knows well that the deliberate judgment 
of mankind, not the hasty and inconsiderate one, is to be relied on; and he 
evidently intends to conduct himself and his office looking to the final 
verdict of the people sober; and this is the better part. 

Most truly yours, 

Los Angeles, California. Norman Bridge. 



APPENDIX V. 

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE THING 

Contributed in 1917, by Norman Bridge, to the "Pan-American 
Record," a Publication in the Interest of the Pan- 
American Petroleum & Transport Company. 

Has a corporation a soul? Why do people say, "Corporations have 
no souls"? Is it because corporations do not die, while their officers and 
managers do — and their affairs go to the probate court? Or because 
corporations are thought to have no mercy or compassion, and are moved 
solely by the selfish impulses of their managers? 

But corporations are really not more heartless than individuals — 
often less so — and their managers usually have for justification of their 
conduct that they are custodians of the interests of absent stockholders, 
who have a right to know that their servants are watching their interests, 
conserving their property and saving their money. Managers — other- 
wise officers — of corporations are trustees, and in business morals there 
is no duty more sacred than that of a trustee of the interests of others. 

The fact is that the current notion is wrong, and corporations have 
souls. Their souls are the collective or composite spirit of their manage- 
ment. If this is honest, high-minded and straight it means a good soul ■ 
If it is dishonest and crooked, then it is a bad soul. The soul of the 
corporation is determined legally by its board of directors, but essentially 
and practically by its officers, who direct and carry out the policy of the 
institution as designed by the board of directors; and the spirit of the 
chief is invariably carried down through the ranks of the employes, and 
usually permeates the entire outfit. On the president and chief manag- 
ing officer, more than on all others, rest the creation and transmission of 
the spirit of the corporation. 

In a practical sense a corporation is, in ultimate analysis, only a 
soul, an imaginary entity. It has a charter and by-laws, to be sure, 
and property and officers and employes, and all sorts of manifestations of 
power and weakness; perhaps it has a seal and keeps a bank account. 
It surely has an office, desks and stationery, and books of accounts. It 
may earn money and pay its debts, or it may fail. Its officers may be 
rewarded for good management, or go to jail for bad conduct if it runs 
counter to the statutes on misdemeanor and felony. But try to touch 
the corporation itself, the very it, and your hand grasps nothing. It is 
like a man's name or his character; we have a word for each, but it is a 
mental image; it is psychological, spiritual. 

[288] 



APPENDIX 289 

When we undertake to weigh moral qualities, it is safe to say that 
the proportion of corporations that live fair and upright lives is greater 
than that of the individuals of the community — even allowing for a lot 
of organizations that are created for fraudulent purposes. 

Many corporations are for years — even centuries — managed on lines 
of moral and legal rectitude that make them models for all men and 
groups of men. 

Such is the ambition of every laudable corporation. Of course it is 
its duty to try to earn an income for its stockholders, for this comports 
with the unavoidable duty of mankind everywhere; if its managers should 
fail to do this they would soon be turned out, as they ought to be. In 
its efforts it has one great satisfaction: Its business is to create wealth 
where it did not exist before — and it does that. 

This petroleum and transport combination has, from the start, been 
carried on with wisdom and fairness; and, on the part of the workers, with 
faithfulness and an industry that has been tireless, even sleepless. The 
Mexicans have often called the operating corps "effectivos" — that is, 
people who accomplish things; and no finer compliment could be paid to 
the force, from the top down to the lowest ranks. They bring things to 
pass, as the public, the petroleum and shipping industry, have discovered 
and shall further discover. 

Great have been the struggles and adventures to blaze the way and 
develop a new industry in the jungles of a foreign state. Countless dis- 
comforts and dangers have been borne cheerfully on land and lake and 
river, in the push of an enterprise of incalculable benefit to the business 
of the world, and especially to the good people of Mexico. President 
Doheny and Vice-President Canfield once were caught in a norther on 
Lake Tamiahua in a little launch, and for some hours were terribly buf- 
feted, and by the rules of probabilities should have gone to the bottom, 
but were saved miraculously. Some of the force have been lost by 
shipwreck, others have survived shipwreck and other calamities, from 
torrents to wood-ticks (pinalillos). 

Loyalty, faith and energy have characterized the great force of junior 
officers and employes. They have been proud of the combination, and 
believed in it. They have caught the spirit and thrill of the human 
dynamo in the general manager's office,* and have infused their work with 
an energy that has astonished their rivals and the public in general. 
Good wages — in Mexico double what prevailed at first — have made good 
living conditions and contentment; and when an emergency has required 
work over-time, even under severe and sometimes dangerous conditions, 
all hands have rushed to the task like soldiers or firemen. And there has 
been no hesitation to allow the workers to dicker over the wages to come 
for the effort; their material rewards for such tasks have usually been 
greater th an they would have presumed to expect. 

•Herbert G. Wylie. 



290 APPENDIX 

In the growth of this business there have arisen hundreds of un- 
expected questions — material, legal and managerial — that have had to be 
dealt with, often without the aid of any precedent whatever. Out of 
them has grown a body of experience and expertness that is today an 
asset of large consequence to the corporation. 

Nobody would pretend that every step of the work has been perfect. 
Fit and try, overcome new obstacles by new devices, change a good plan 
for a better one, have been the policy of this, as of every great and suc- 
cessful enterprise. The work in a foreign country, and under changing 
conditions in our own country, has found snags in plenty. To have 
overcome so many of them, and brought the system to its present success, 
is a signal accomplishment, and has a luminous promise for the future. 

Certain elements of policy were easily fixed at the beginning, because 
founded on basic morals and common sense, and consonant with univer- 
sal ethics — like the rule to mind our own business in a foreign country, 
and avoid mixing in the political problems of its people. Other and minor 
rules have been the result of discussions and the comparison of views and 
experiences between the chiefs and lieutenants and operatives. As the 
business expands, other and new questions constantly arise, and so, like 
the growth of law, the evolution goes on. 

The general aims have been consistent and continuous from the first. 
There has been from the first but one president* — a man with a vision and 
a unique comprehension of the oil industry and of business of many sorts — 
and one general manager. They have always had willing and effective 
support from subordinates of all classes; and they had, during all the early 
and formative years, the assistance of that wise and loyal fellow-worker, 
the late Vice-President Charles A. Canfield. To the spirit of the institu- 
tion in its best sense his contribution was material and lasting. 

The general staff, and all of its branches in a half dozen different 
places, are today composed of men, many of whom are tried in their 
respective tasks, or in others from which they have been promoted. 
Many have come from service elsewhere, and have acquired with the 
veterans in the service the dominant impulse of the force, and all are doing 
first-class team work, work that is absolutely indispensable to success 
in any business of such magnitude as this. 

On land and sea, in the offices, shops and fields, on our railroads and 
ships a-sail and in harbor, they work together for the general purpose, 
like the many pieces of wood in a stringed instrument that must vibrate 
in unison in order to produce harmony. These men and women work in 
harmony for the common end; and they are making the music of laudable 
industry that is heard afar. 

Verily, corporations have souls, and this corporation group has one 
of which i t is not ashamed. 

*Edward L. Doheny. 



APPENDIX VI. 

A Partial List of Papers and Publications by Dr. Bridge. 

1873 Opening Address, Rush Medical College. Spring Course, March 

5, 1873. 

1874 "Trichiniasis" — A Clinical Lecture. Chicago Medical Journal, 

1874, p. 147) 
1874 "Stammering, Loss of Voice and Neuralgia, Due to Constipation." 
{Ibid., p. 431.) 

1878 "Unusual Distension of Cavity of Cervix Uteri, with Spasmodic 

Contraction of the Internal Os, in Miscarriage." {Ibid., 1878, 
Vol. II, p. 487.) 

1879 "Deep Ulceration of Face in Scarlet Fever." {The Medical Record, 

August 9, 1879.) 
1881 "A Case of Hydrophobia in Man." {Chicago Medical Journal and 

Examiner, Vol. II, p. 402.) 
1884 "The New Science of Medicine." Doctorate Address, Rush 

College. 

1884 "The Therapeutics of Mineral Waters." {Journal American 

Medical Association, December 27, 1884.) 

1885 Report on the "Practice of Medicine." Transactions Illinois State 

Medical Society, 1885.) 
1885 "Pseudo-hypertrophic Muscular Paralysis." {The Medical News, 
January 10, 1885.) 

1885 Reference Handbook (Wood), Articles on "Colic" and "Diarrhoea." 

1886 "Headache." 

1887 "Gonorrhceal Rheumatism." 

1890 "Inflammation of the Appendix and Caecum and the Duty of the 

Physician Regarding Them." {Transactions Association Ameri- 
can Physicians, 1890.) 

1891 "The Climate of Southern California for Pulmonary Diseases." 

{Ibid., 1891.) 
1893 Articles on "Headache," "Diarrhoea" and "Gonorrhceal Rheuma- 
tism" in Supplement to the Reference Handbook. 

1893 "Coffee Drinking as a Frequent Cause of Symptoms of Disease." 

{Transactions Association of American Physicians, 1893.) 

1894 "Cough Induced by Posture as a Symptom Nearly Diagnostic of 

Phthisis." {Ibid., 1894.) 
1897 "Some Reflex Neuroses Connected with the Abdomen." {Ibid., 
1897.) 

[291] 



292 APPENDIX 

1898 "Some Usually Overlooked Signs and Symptoms of Chest Diseases." 
(Transactions Association of American Physicians, 1898.) 

1898 Book: "The Penalties of Taste." 

1900 "Some Observations on Human Temperature in Disease." (Trans- 
actions Association of American Physicians, 1900.) 

1902 Book: "The Rewards of Taste." 

1902 "Drainage in Chronic Intestinal Catarrh," etc. (Transactions 

Association of American Physicians, 1902.) 

1903 Book: "Tuberculosis." 

1906 "Some Truths about Sleep." (Transactions Association of American 

Physicians, 1906.) 

1907 Book: "House Health." 

1915 Book: "Fragments and Addresses." 

1915 "The Economic Waste of Sickness and Premature Death." (Journal 

of the American Medical Association, December 11, 1915.) 

1916 "A Defraudation of Youth." Read before Chicago Woman's 

Club, November 8, 1916. 
1918 "Ephraim Fletcher Ingals; the Man." Doctorate Address, Rush 

College, 1918. 
1920 "Looking Ahead." Doctorate Address, Rush College, June 16, 

1920. 



Other Books by Norman Bridge 

"The Penalties of Taste," Revised Edition. 
(Duffield & Co.) 

'The Rewards of Taste." (Duffield & Co.) 

"House Health." (Duffield & Co.) 

' ' Fragments and Addresses . " ( B irely & Elson , 
Los Angeles.) 

"Tuberculosis." (W. B. Saunders & Co.) 



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